Stress has its origin in fight or flight. The hormones involved in making the body ready to fight are used to gear up for action.

Being a carer can be isolating. It can be difficult for them to express their worries

Even if there is refusal to acknowledge stress, eventually the body will begin to show unmistakable signs which can be physical, behavioural and emotional. When people feel stressed, they no longer feel safe and are inhibited from acting in new ways. Instead, they become defensive, relying on familiar habits.

Members of staff in community care face work stress as they are asked to play so many roles, such as supportive family member, disciplining taskmaster and stimulating player. The affective characteristics of the caring vocation exert pressure to present an understanding, supportive and optimistic appearance.

The art of care includes pressing the reality of work demands without unduly upsetting people. Moreover, distress not only erodes mental abilities, but also makes people less emotionally intelligent.

Carers who are upset may fail to read emotions accurately in other people – eroding the most basic skill needed for empathy, thus impairing their social skills. In the caring sphere, when carers may find themselves overburdened with heavy responsibilities, with duties that are conflicting, too demanding or unclear, both stress and dissatisfaction are bound to increase.

Many carers feel there is too much to do and their life seems to be a struggle against time. Stressful conditions can create a climate of frustration and tension, potentially leading to burnout. In a state of burnout, people find their emotional resources exhausted, feel undervalued and worthless.

The only way for such carers is down. Depression or other ill health may be the result. When stress increases, the body reacts by secreting more adrenaline and noradrenaline. This leads to higher blood pressure to get the body ready for action. At the same time, the body secretes the stress hormone cortisol, which is even longer lasting than adrenaline and which interferes with cognitive abilities.

All these symptoms of stress may have adverse effects on competence as they sap energy and divert from the core task of managing care.

Both good and bad moods tend to perpetuate themselves, in part because they skew perceptions and memories: when people feel upbeat, they tend to see a situation in a positive light and recall the good things about it. When they feel bad, they focus on the downside.

Beyond this perceptual skew, stress hormones secreted when a person is upset take hours to be reabsorbed in the body and fade away. Negative emotions, especially anger, anxiety, or a sense of futility, powerfully disrupt work by hijacking attention from the task at hand.

Psychologists have defined stress in the caring field as the experience of unpleasant emotions such as tension, frustration, anxiety, anger and depression resulting from aspects of the work carers do.

At this point, it has to be said that stress can never be eliminated and an element of stress can produce results, as it can be used as an incentive for better job performance and motivate the individual to strive to better one’s position.

Stress-management strategies must not only be used but should be given great prominence, making sure they are truly effective. The awareness of potential stressors has to be continuous and coping mechanisms need to be flexible enough to change in the light of the different stressors of different individuals.

Up to some years ago and even currently, people in the caring profession have been reluctant to admit they are undergoing stress, as they fear this might indicate that they are failing to cope sufficiently with their work and responsibilities and duties bound to taking care of their loved ones. Furthermore, people may perceive that any attempt to reduce the experience of stress is the individual’s own responsibility.

Despite such demands, and the lack of recognition of such demands as being legitimate, people continue to go the extra mile, work extra hours and forego the family.

What is even more worrying is the fact that people are becoming addicted to this pattern and, in reality, are living to work rather than working to live.

Moreover, due to the emotional demands of the caring role and the invasion of personal time and space, for many carers the line between caring and their personal life is increasingly hazy.

An effective way of venting stress and anxiety to create respite is through therapy and counselling sessions. These two methods can be helpful for carers who need to speak confidentially about what they are going through.

Being a carer can be an isolating endeavour; it can be difficult for them to express and communicate their worries and fears with others. Often, the attention is on the person receiving care, and carers can feel remorseful about communicating their feelings.

Counsellors, psychologists or psychotherapists can be of a great support through their empathic listening and sensitive stance to carers’ concerns.

Olivia Cuschieri is a care operations manager.

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