Unfortunately a lot of Engineers suffer a lot of stress in their career whether
it's due to the great workloads client demands or the type of work that we work
in we're significantly prone to being stressed and burnt out
we often hear about the great resignation for leaving engineering it's
important that we understand the signs and symptoms of burnout when we're
observing stress in our self or the stress in others so I'll be going
through some of the reasons why Engineers suffer stress some ways that
you can spot it in yourself and how you can potentially deal with it my name's
Brendan you're a structural engineer now let's get into it so what are some of
the causes that may suffer their stress they really fall into five categories
demand support relationships role and change so what are some of the stresses
in demand what's workload long hours I think you can't disagree when you talk
to a lot of Engineers they're working really long hours to get the work that
they need to get out especially when they're hitting deadlines there can be
upwards of midnight or later and those long hours add a lot of additional
fatigue and stress on the engineers that are suffering from them something else
that can hit a lot of Engineers hard is the level of responsibility because when
you think about what we're doing as Engineers we can affect a lot of
people's lives especially as Structural Engineers if we make a mistake it gets
built it can be effectively affect hundreds if not thousands of people
that's a pretty big responsibility to have and this responsibility can live
heavily on a lot of people not only just the responsibility civil liability is
also something that stresses people out all the time am I going to get sued am I
going to lose my house and because of all this additional stress and workload
and civil liabilities it means that everyone's really busy and this is where
it falls into the next category of support we have that lack of support you
don't feel like you're being guided properly you don't think you're being
overlooked properly this lack of support adds additional stress as you're
worrying about am I doing it correctly is it going to be checked properly going
back to that high level of responsibility as well am I getting
enough resources to do the work that I'm doing there were all sort of
intermingling with each other and this has not necessarily being done
deliberately to you it's very hard especially when people got different
responsibilities they might actually not be looking out properly to make sure
they're supporting everyone that they need to Now relationships at work is
really a different thing I'm not talking about lovers here I'm just talking about
your relationship with other colleagues and relationships about how you're
developing your career and the responsibilities that you had doesn't
matter what level you're at whether you're junior level talking you're a
senior manager or even a senior manager talking to a junior level you don't want
to be taken the wrong way but the one thing you've got to realize is the
junior guys are always constantly looking up you for guidance however they
do realize that you're not perfect and if you're a junior person looking up
you've got to realize that if being where you've been so you don't need to
stress about am I doing it correctly everyone has been there at some stage
and as you're moving up you're asking another developing my career in the
right way just looking at where you're going to be in 5 10 15 years can be
really stressful something that's become more prominent especially in the last
couple of years is the lack of job security it's something that we thought
we always had but never realized it was just an illusion as soon as things
became hard a lot of companies put a lot of Engineers off or put them on furlough
where we'd actually put a lot of effort back into the past this can put a lot of
stress in people trying to work harder work those longer hours get more pushed
into those stressful situations so constantly stressing am I going to lose
the job am I going to pay my mortgage and one of the last ones is change we
don't like things changing a lot you just look at the building industry it
hasn't really changed in the last 20 years change can add a lot of stress
whether it's being a new manager a new position or just mergers either of these
types of changes can add a lot of stress to your life so what are some of the
signs of symptoms of stress well they can either be physical or mental you can
have muscle tension pains you can feel fatigue to have actually chest pains as
well so you might feel like you're trying to get crushed down in a little
box so this is some of the symptoms you may see in yourself there's also mental
such as feeling fatigue drain drawn out not feeling as joyful as you would have
been not enjoying those weekends or dreading that Monday comes around at the
end of the weekend constantly feeling feeling worrying or if you're always
constantly forgetting something there's a big signs that you're potentially very
stressed stress can also lead to a lot of behavior changes like lack of sleep
sleeping too much binging on food smoking and over drinking another thing
that you may be surprised about that was across all levels was a fear of lack of
knowledge well Engineers a lot of time are constantly stressing trying to
making sure they know everything it's good to have some fear but if it's
debilitating and adding too much stress and something you're going is this
really helpful so what can be done if you see these signs in stress in you or
someone else I've gone through someone about how you can think in your head but
what are the specific things that you need to know well first up if we go back
to the start is understanding those sign symptoms so you can see them in yourself
or someone else now this is only a start because if you see them because now you
can start to address them when you do start to see the signs and symptoms in
yourself trying different techniques that can help you slow down either
living early for the day day going out for a run exercising watching some TV
working out different ways you can either be with your family now if you do
know you've got a big deadline planning ahead it may feel a little stressful to
start trying to plan ahead to get to your goals however planning is the first
signs to success and breaking up those more complex tasks into little
bite-sized pieces something you should also be doing is either talking and
being empathetic to other people if you see them in others sitting down reaching
and talking expressing the feelings that you have had about the stress that
you've had in the past or you're currently experiencing not only does it
reduce those stress levels and be a more productive engineer as you're realizing
that you're not alone now that you've learned about some of those most
important things you've had with those soft skills about learning about stress
you should be learning about the most important skill that every engineer has
for a video that I'll link here that'll only help you progress your career hit
your goals but also make you more successful and if you're interested in
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type of content will not be possible as always stay safe keep learning and I'll
see you next week bye