ISSN (Online) : 2277-4572
Author(s): Jithesh Sathyan
Stress management is the ability to reduce or cope with stressors by controlling frequency, intensity, and duration of the stress reaction to decrease unhealthy conditions. In the broadest sense, stress management may include any type of stress intervention; however, it may also include a narrow set of individual-level interventions. Organizations need to clearly identify the causes of work related stress and, the physical and emotional symptoms that employees have based on these causes while designing stress management programme. This research study was undertaken to evaluate the effectiveness of alternative medicines to help alleviate work related stress symptoms of IT (Information Technology) professionals. For this study, data was collected from 128 IT professionals, to identify a subset of professionals experiencing high levels of work place stress. 53 of 128 professionals reported work related issues as primary factor contributing to stress, in the survey response. The top three causes of work related stress, the top three physical symptoms associated to stress and top three emotional symptoms associated to stress were determined for this subset of IT professionals. These 53 professionals were asked to administer a two month alternative medicine therapy programme that involved ten sessions, one session per week and duration of each session ranging from 45 to 60 minutes. Pre and post rating given by 21 professionals that attended all sessions in the programme, for the top three causes of work related stress, the top three physical symptoms associated to stress and top three emotional symptoms associated to stress was used to determine the impact of the Alternative Medicine (AM) Therapy programme in stress management of IT professionals.
