To know how we should prevent technostress at work, we must first know the psychological basis of this expression. Any psychologist is familiar with the concept of stress and has the basic tools to help their patient manage it. However, unless other issues require other types of therapeutic models, the most common approach to deal with this problem would be the cognitive-behavioral one. In this post, we discuss what a psychologist’s work can do to help people suffering from stress, particularly occupational technostress.
Cognitive-behavioral approach to addressing occupational technostress
The professional begins by identifying the symptoms experienced by the person, the situations in which they appear, the possible triggers, and, of course, the consequences that this has on their well-being, interpersonal relationships, and their responsibilities.
In addition, before exploring possible coping strategies that the person should implement for their stress management, in this case, their stress related to the use of electronic devices, it is essential to find out how they have been handling it intuitively so far.
The objective of this last inquiry is to positively reinforce those strategies that are beneficial for coping with stressors so that the person continues to implement them and to identify possible strategies that are acting unconsciously as stress maintainers rather than stress reducers.
When should I start worrying about my occupational technostress?
It is not possible to exactly how many sessions will “resolve” this issue, like every person, coping mechanism, personal circumstances, and vulnerability towards “technostress” is different.
In addition, it is difficult to address a situation such as technostress in the psychologist’s office without several issues related directly or indirectly to it appearing along the way, which will prolong (and enrich) the therapy process.
To prevent technostress is unavoidable for a large part of the population, especially at a time when, out of obligation or convenience, even the smallest activity tends to be done online. On the other hand, stress itself is inherent to human life and necessary to adapt.
However, as with any other psychological problem, it is necessary to ask for specialized help if, due to the intensity, duration, and frequency of the symptoms, we feel like we are suffering from a mental and physical health problem and we are not able to make the right changes in our routine on our own.
Organizations can help prevent technostress at work
However, companies should pay attention to such issues and help prevent technostress as it can also imply an employee is saturated from the excessive and invasive use of electronic devices, both in their personal and professional life.
In this sense, remote work has been an extremely useful methodology for many companies to adapt to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, when handled poorly, it has been the perfect scenario for technology to end up turning against our psychological well-being due to bad management of remote work in our company.
At ifeel, we receive hundreds of queries every day about several situations that are stressful for people. These situations often have to do with how relationships, work, leisure, and other consumption habits nowadays are very “high-tech”. Therefore, these consultations may have behind them -even if the person is not aware of it- some component of technological saturation, related to not making good use of it, which causes a number of employees to see their mood, physiological activities, or other aspects being altered.
Prevention
Sometimes the problem is not really “technostress” but what we can call technological fatigue or aversion, even if the person handles it seemingly well and has no perception of being overwhelmed by it.
In this sense, it is always interesting to remember that we often tend to overestimate our strength and minimize the consequences and signs of our physical and psychological exhaustion, especially if we are keen to keep going.
This, applied to the world of work, is a risk factor to be taken into account to prevent technostress, and we could summarize it by drawing a parallel with the classic advice given every summer: just as we have to drink before we are thirsty, perhaps we should stop overloading ourselves with work before experiencing the wear and tear that this entails. In either case, it is advisable not to overuse electronic devices and to seek help from a psychologist if the situation worsens.
Being aware of this as employees and managers within a company will not make us give up working remotely overnight as if we were returning to the longed-for former normality: the epidemiological situation still does not allow it, at least not in a generalized and widespread way.
However, this does not exempt us as an organization from knowing how occupational technostress can affect staff mental health and, therefore, the company’s productivity. We must take into account basic recommendations that we can all carry out in our daily lives as well as more structured strategies for preventing and addressing mental health problems in employees that may be harming their professional performance.
Emotional well-being program for companies
At ifeel, we understand that it is not possible to take care of the company without taking care of the psychological well-being of its employees. To do so, we have an emotional well-being program for companies, designed by our team of occupational well-being psychologists with one main objective: to help companies place employee health at the center of their strategy to build their mission statement.
Thanks to this partnership, the people in charge of HR departments can receive personalized, data-driven advice on how to make good decisions in a company to get the most out of the teams they are in charge of and take better care of the psychological well-being of the people in them.
Moreover, this program offers employees a holistic mental health care service structured at different levels according to their needs. This service includes, if required, online psychological therapy with a psychologist specialized in cases like theirs. Try our program today so you can see how it could help you.
We hope you found this post about how to prevent technostress useful. If you want more information about our emotional well-being program for companies, simply request it and we will contact your team as soon as possible.
