Facts About Stress

Stress is:

"The adverse reaction people have to excessive pressures or other types of demand placed on them." 

Those pressures may come from many differing sources and when their combined effect is overwhelming, stress occurs.  This means that stress is not good for you. Stress is an unhealthy state of body or mind or both.

For many years, people have referred to the Flight or Fight response as the stress response but Flight/Fight is a one off reaction to a perceived challenge or pressure and is not necessarily bad for the individual. It is good to be alerted to possible threats and to prepare to take avoiding action.

However, continually being in this state means that the body chemicals associated with Flight/Fight are then constantly being stimulated and the result is ill health of one type or another. This is stress.

Most official statistics are 2 years old at best and statistics from other sources vary widely.

Here are just a few:

HSE Statistics for 2010/11
New figures published today (2/11/2011) show the ongoing trend for reduction in the number of people injured and made unwell at work has continued.
The statistics published by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) show that in Britain between April 2010 and March 2011:
•    An estimated 1.2 million people said they were suffering from an illness caused or made worse by their work, down from 1.3 million in 2009/10. Of these, 500,000 were new illnesses occurring in-year.
•    171 workers fatally injured - up from 147 the previous year.
The new data confirms that Britain continues to have the lowest rate of fatal occupational injuries in Europe as well as one of the lowest levels of work-related ill health.

Workers are putting in a staggering 26 million extra hours in the workplace each day, according to new research from Aviva's latest report on health of the workplace. It shows six in ten employees regularly work beyond their contracted hours, putting in an average of 1.5 hours overtime a day. Nearly one in four claim they work an extra 2-3 hours daily.  79% of these hours are unpaid, which means workers are providing around worth £225 million of ‘free' hours each day for employers.
- Aviva October 2011

Stress has become the most common cause of long-term sickness absence for both manual and non-manual employees, according to the CIPD/Simplyhealth Absence Management survey.
-CIPD Survey October 2011

British businesses lose an estimated £26 billion each year in sickness absence and lost productivity. With greater awareness and mental health support, they said businesses could save one third of these costs - 'a mammoth £8 billion a year'.
- Mind June 2011

Employee absence levels in public sector at 9.6 days per annum per employee whilst private sector absence at 6.6 days per annum per employee.
- CIPD Absence Management survey 2010

Despite pressure to cut costs, 22% of organisations have increased their spend on employee well being, with only 9% showing a reduction.  Those who have increased spending in 2010 have indicated they are likely to increase their well being spend further in 2011
- CIPD Absence Management Survey 2010  

According to self reports, consistently stress is the second most commonly reported work related illness
- Labour Force Survey.

In 2009/10, 435,000 experienced stress caused or aggravated by their work
-Labour Force Survey

In 2009/10, an estimated 9.8 million working days were lost through work-related stress.  Every person experiencing work related stress was of work for an estimated 22.6 days which equates to 0.42 days per worker.
- HSE

Stress and chronic ill health in the workplace costs £100bn
- Dame Carole Black, ISMA Conference 2009

An estimated 442,000 individuals in Britain, who worked in 2007/08 believed that they were experiencing work-related stress at a level that was making them ill
- Labour Force Survey Government Stats

Estimates indicate that self-reported work-related stress, depression or anxiety accounted for an estimated 13.5 million lost working days in Britain in 2007/08
- Labour Force Survey

Direct cost of sickness absence estimated as £635 per person per year.
- CIPD 2008

Indirect costs of sickness absence have been measured as twice the direct costs i.e. £1,270, making a total of £1,905 per employee per year – typically around 9% of payroll costs
- Norwich Union Healthcare

In 2008 - for every 80p spent on health promotion and intervention programmes, £4 can be saved due to reduced absenteeism, temporary staff, presenteeism and improved motivation
- The European Network for Workplace Health Promotion

The 2007 Psychosocial Working Conditions (PWC) survey indicated that around 13.6% of all working individuals thought their job was very or extremely stressful.
- HSE

The annual incidence of work-related mental health problems in Britain in 2007 was approximately 5,750 new cases per year. However, this almost certainly underestimates the true incidence of these conditions in the British workforce.
- HSE

According to self-reports, estimated 237 000 people, who worked in 2008, first became aware of work-related stress, depression or anxiety giving an annual incidence rate of 780 cases per 100 000 worker.
- Labour Force Survey