62% of the residents of Estonia who participated in a recent Seesam survey reported having experienced work stress in the past year. According to almost half of the respondents, this is due to a heavy workload, which results in constant tiredness and bad mood. However, more than 10% of the respondents felt that the stress associated with a responsible job is a normal phenomenon in respect of which nothing can be done.

According to Marit Raag, Health Insurance Product Manager at Seesam, those hit by work stress the most are people aged 25–34, of whom altogether 84% admitted having experienced work stress. 

“Obviously, this age group has a lot of responsibilities, which are very difficult to balance skilfully – for many people at this age, it is important to prove themselves at work to the maximum and to achieve their career goals. At the same time, many of them also have families with young children growing up, and this age group is also socially very active. It is easy to start feeling that there is not enough time, energy or money for everything. And especially in a situation where confidence that has not yet recovered from the tensions of the coronavirus era has been hit by the impacts of the economic downturn and concerns about livelihood,” Raag said.

Work stress is caused by mental health problems and heavy workload

According to her, it was also somewhat surprising to see a high proportion of people aged 18–24 experiencing work stress. “Three-quarters of this age group said they had experienced work stress in the past year. However, the main causes of work stress among the 18–24-year-olds and 25–35-year-olds were different. One in two respondents in the youngest group cited mental health problems and a feeling that work was no longer rewarding as the biggest causes of work stress (53% and 50% of the respondents, respectively). However, for the 25–34-year-olds, the biggest source of work stress was by far the excessive workload, which was also the main source of stress for all subsequent age groups. No doubt this result also reflects the values of different generations in working life,” the insurer said.

High workloads were identified as a source of work stress by one in two people who had experienced work stress. Mental health concerns were cited as a cause of work stress by 34% of the respondents, while 33% said that work stress was caused by financial problems.

“In our survey, 38% of women acknowledged the impact of mental health on increasing work stress, while 29% of men recognised it as a source of stress. However, this does not necessarily mean that women suffer more from work stress – it may show that men are less likely to acknowledge their mental health problems or discuss them with loved ones or professionals. There was also a big difference between Estonians and non-Estonians. Among Estonians, mental health concerns were cited as a source of work stress by 40% of the respondents, while among non-Estonians it was cited by only 20%,” she said.

Seesam also asked the respondents about the impact of work stress on people and how they manage work stress. Nearly 70% of the respondents admitted they were constantly tired due to work stress, with the younger the respondent group, the more they complained about fatigue caused by work stress.

Among the 18–24-year-olds, altogether 81% of the respondents reported the fatigue caused by work stress. Young people were also the most likely to say that work stress causes them to have a constant negative attitude and unwillingness to take up work in the morning. In other age groups, work stress was also acknowledged to cause constant bad mood and negative attitude, with a third of the respondents also citing concentration problems and constant anxiety as a consequence of overwork.

When the survey respondents were asked how they managed their tensions related to work, half of them mentioned going in for hobbies. “This activity was particularly popular among the Estonian respondents – while 52% of the Estonians said that going in for hobbies was a stress reliever, only 39% of the non-Estonians said this. 40% of all the respondents said that the best way for them to manage tensions is to discuss their concerns with their loved ones. Women are more likely than men to ‘talk themselves out of it’, with 46% of women saying this was a way of managing stress, compared to only a third of men,” she said.

According to the representative of Seesam, the 18–24 age group once again showed a slightly different pattern of behaviour, with talking about their concerns being the most popular way of managing tensions, with 55% of the age group doing so.

Few are engaged in the conscious management of tensions

“It was somewhat surprising, however, that only an extremely small percentage of the respondents seek help from a professional in order to manage their tensions. Only 6% of the respondents said they visit a psychologist to manage their stress more skilfully. One in ten respondents said they take a variety of food supplements that help them cope better with tensions. Unfortunately, there were also quite a lot of people who openly responded that their way of managing tensions was to consume alcohol, which is known to have only a temporary effect,” Raag noted.

According to her, the issue that she noticed in the event of dealing with work stress was that quite a lot of people do not deal with managing their tensions at all. “There were those who said they did not have enough money to deal with stress, and there were also those who lacked the knowledge of where to start to tackle the problems related to work stress. However, more than 10% of the respondents admitted that for them work stress has already become a natural phenomenon – they consider it normal to have stress in a job with a lot of responsibility.”

According to a representative of Seesam, this is certainly not so. “Stress at work can lead to very serious health problems and burnout. In addition, it can develop bad patterns of behaviour that are very difficult, if not impossible, to eradicate in the future. People suffering from permanent work stress tend to think that going to work is unpleasant, that their duties are meaningless and colleagues are unprofessional. This is not a normal working life – such tensions need to be addressed so that people can also feel that their working life is joyful and rewarding. Therefore, it is important to look for a solution to work stress, either with the help of the employer or a professional,” Raag recommended