How Online Training Can Help You Let Go Of Work-Related Stress

The number of people experiencing work-related stress has increased in recent years. Stress in the workplace can develop for varying reasons, such as impending deadlines, conflicts with coworkers, or a lack of job safety. While occasional stress is common and generally not harmful, chronic work-related stress can create significant challenges in your daily life and affect both your physical and mental health.

For those looking to manage stress in a convenient and accessible way, online training has been shown to help reduce work-related stress and improve mental health significantly. Below, we’re providing an overview of work-related stress and discussing the efficacy of online training as a stress-management technique.

An overview of work-related stress

Work-related stress is an uncomfortable feeling and one that may lead to varied complications, including anxiety, depression, and the creation of unhealthy habits. There are many ways in which this stress may originate. For some, it comes from feeling overwhelmed by their job tasks or experiencing a perceived inability to perform at the level they strive for. For others, it may be due to feeling that they are not being paid fairly for their time and effort. Work stress may also come from constant change, lack of change, or poor co-worker relations, among other causes.

One of the most common symptoms of work-related stress is insomnia—the inability to get healthy, consistent sleep that is vital to the body and mind. Evidence of the negative relationship between work-related stress and sleep trouble has continued to grow, with chronic insomnia affecting a significant portion of the western world.

Restorative sleep is important for high-level functioning and a positive mood. If you are experiencing a lack of restorative sleep, it is normal to feel frustrated, anxious, and generally unwell. You may feel a decline in productivity, everyday functioning, and quality of life.

Additional physical and mental symptoms of work-related stress include, but are not limited to:

• Fatigue
• Tension
• Elevated blood pressure
• Headaches
• Gastrointestinal issues
• Rashes
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Irritability
• Difficulty concentrating
• Heart issues

How do you recover from work?

Recovery from work is important for general health and well-being. It is an essential daily process and can be defined as restoring depleted mental and physical resources after work (also known as psychophysiological unwinding). This helps to process the strains of work and balance these stressors with feelings of calm and detachment. Recovering from work successfully generally occurs through three activities:

• Experiencing adequate restorative sleep: This is especially important for recovery from work. While your brain processes emotional stress, your body repairs any physical strain. In addition to this, restorative sleep helps to increase energy levels and improve mood, both of which are important to withstand the stress of the workday and improve tolerance for potentially frustrating situations.
• Cognitively detaching from work: Cognitive detachment has been linked positively to overall well-being, including higher job performance and lower psychological strain. Mental detachment is the ability to disconnect from work and direct your thoughts and energy toward other aspects of your life. This also, in turn, helps to improve your ability to relax and increases your restorative sleep.
• Participating in recreational (leisure) activities: This works with cognitive detachment from work. Recreational activities are one way to detach the mind from work and foster other areas of your life and interests. This also helps to engage the body and mind in a way that helps process stressors from the workday and restore resources that may have been depleted throughout the day.

The efficacy of online training in reducing work-related stress

Evidence-based interventions that target each of the three above components individually have been studied in the past and have shown moderate effect sizes. For example, online cognitive behavioral therapy has improved sleep quality and reduced insomnia for participants experiencing stress related to schoolwork. 

To determine the efficacy of online training for reducing work-related stress, an internet intervention designed specifically for employees to improve the three components of a healthy work recovery was developed and tested. This intervention, called GET.ON Recovery, was developed to determine whether online training could reduce insomnia complaints and workplace stress.

Participants were recruited through email distribution lists for primary, secondary, and vocational schools as provided by the Ministry of Education in the German state of Nordrhein-Westfalen. Interested teachers then replied by email and were given a screening questionnaire and later a diagnostic interview over the phone. To participate in the study, teachers must have been experiencing significant clinical insomnia symptoms and work-related rumination, both of which were categorized as scoring above a 15 on the screening questionnaires.

Participants were randomized into either the group that performed the intervention or the waitlist-control group. Those who were chosen to complete the GET.ON Recovery program participated in a six-week course, divided into 1-week modules. These modules started with information on how sleep, cognitive detachment, and leisure activities interplay to improve mental and physical health. Participants learned how to make a plan to improve these areas and were given a diary to record and discuss ongoing adherence to lifestyle changes and report progress.

Participants learned about implementing boundaries in their lives, detaching from work, and combating worrying and rumination. After each lesson, participants were given tools and assignments to implement the changes in real-time. These assignments included planning recreational activities, monitoring sleep, and choosing exercises to include in their upcoming week. Participants were also taught how to anticipate upcoming stressors and prepare ways to minimize the physical and mental toll they can create.

To evaluate the effectiveness of the internet-based program, participants were given assessments before the training program, eight weeks after the training program, and again six months after the training program. They were asked questions to measure:

• Insomnia severity
• Recuperation in sleep
• Sleep efficiency
• Follow-up diagnosis of primary insomnia, major depression, and generalized anxiety disorder
• Worrying
• Work-related rumination
• Recovery experience
• Recovery activities
• Absenteeism (absences from work)
• Presenteeism (measured by days of productive work)
• User satisfaction

From this evaluation, the group who completed the online training program experienced much lower insomnia severity post-treatment than those who did not. Participants also had significantly less rumination, less worrying, higher sleep efficacy, higher levels of restorative sleep, more recreational activity, and a better recovery experience than the control group.

Ongoing assessments to detect progress in participants helped improve the validity of this study, but one limitation is that the sample was restricted to schoolteachers. More research on broader demographics needs to be done to strengthen the results and provide additional insight into the efficacy of these programs. 

What can we learn from the GET.ON Recovery study?

The GET.ON Recovery study is one of the most thorough randomized control trials examining whether online training programs effectively reduce work-related stress. Results from this study show us that online interventions can effectively improve all three aspects of healthy work recovery and have the high promise of being effective towards a wider audience. This study showed a low dropout rate, indicating that online-based interventions may be a great option to increase participation and allow flexibility when completing the training.

Next steps in reducing work-related stress

To take steps to reduce work-related stress, here are a few options:

• Take up a leisure hobby you enjoy after work. This can help to direct thoughts away from job-related worries and improve cognitive detachment. Leisure activities are anything you enjoy that occupies your attention, such as community sports, walking, reading, painting, gardening, photography, or crocheting. This helps to reduce stress levels and increase restorative sleep.
• Start a nighttime routine away from screens and work-related activities. Examples of this include taking a nice bath, reading, meditating, drinking a cup of tea, or stretching gently. The goal is to help your body relax and let your mind wind down from the day. This helps to improve sleep and improve detachment from work in the evening.
• Practice mindful breathing in the morning or throughout the day. This is one of the simplest meditation techniques and helps reduce anxiety and negative emotions and improve concentration. This can help you disconnect from stressful events throughout the workday and react calmly while keeping a healthy level of detachment.
• Write in a sleep diary. Keeping a sleep log can help you find trends in what daily occurrences lead to better or worse sleep.
• Make an appointment with a psychologist. Therapy allows you to discuss your symptoms and learn techniques to help with work-related stress.
• Meet with your employer or human resources manager. You can learn about available resources for employees and potential changes in the workplace that may reduce stress.

Managing work-related stress with online therapy

Research suggests that online therapy can be an effective method of helping individuals manage stress that arises out of their job. For example, in a study examining the efficacy of online therapy for stress, participants reported experiencing improvements in their mental health both at home and at work. Researchers in the study emphasized the ability of online therapy platforms to provide care to those who struggle with work-related stress but may not have access to providers. 

Online therapy is an accessible and convenient way of addressing stress that arises out of your job. With an online therapy platform like BetterHelp, you can connect with a licensed therapist remotely, allowing you to avoid potentially stress-inducing situations like missing work to commute to an office. You’ll also have the opportunity to reach out to your therapist outside of sessions; so, if you have a question about work-related stress or want to clarify a point made during therapy, you can send them a message, and they’ll respond when they’re able.