The old saying “death by a thousand cuts” can be applied to a variety of scenarios, from racking up debt to the lead-up to the end of a relationship. When it comes to work stress, it is rarely one major event that leads to burnout. Instead, it is the slow and steady build up of many microstressors over time that can drain a person’s mind, leading to debilitating fatigue that can greatly impact one’s work performance or job satisfaction.

Microstressors can often go unnoticed while they are happening, but they can accumulate without many people even realizing it. Eventually, that gradual accumulation can significantly impact one’s health and mental well-being.

What Are Microstressors?

Everyone knows about the major life stressors: job loss, a death in the family, or moving to a new city, state, or country. Although these are infrequent, they are still impactful, stress-inducing moments.

Unlike major life stressors, however, microstressors are frequent, low-level pressures or situations that chip away at one’s happiness or anxiety level. These stressors happen day in and day out, and they can often be found in curt emails from our bosses, looming deadlines, frequent interruptions while we are trying to work, or even frustrating technical glitches.

While we may not realize something is a microstressor while it's happening, how we feel as these microstressors build up cannot be ignored. When we stop to think about how often these little stressors happen throughout the work week, it becomes easy to see how they can quickly add up and create a noticeable issue. Over time, constant microstress can affect one’s ability to deal with bigger stress-inducing events or situations.

The Spheres of Microstressors

People experience microstressors in three primary spheres: individual, organizational, and societal. These can overlap or affect one another, creating even larger, more complicated problems.

Individual microstressors occur in all aspects of our lives and affect most people. These stressors come from juggling the demands of parenthood, family obligations, friendships, and relationships. Little everyday things like being 15 minutes late picking up the kids or having a small argument with a friend can contribute to the “death by a thousand cuts” that causes monumental stress as the triggers build.

Organizational stress is work-based. Tension from unresolved conflicts at the office, inconsistent performance or assistance from other team members, and managing priorities can all cause microstressors at work. Burnout can be stoked as these microstressors continue to occur without people finding a way to manage them.

Societal stress is something many of us have experienced in recent years with the weight of a global pandemic and an uncertain political climate. These microstressors work on a broader level, creating background anxiety that can be like a buzz in one’s brain that never quite goes away.

Each individual micro stressor — a tense exchange, an unclear task, a slight shift in expectations — may feel minor in isolation. But over time, their relentless frequency chips away at your mental energy, focus, and emotional bandwidth. Eventually, the cumulative effect can lead to greater levels of exhaustion or even burnout. There's no single dramatic event to point to but a thousand small ones. Burnout is often not as much about work itself as it is the invisible or silent effort that goes unnoticed and, therefore, is never adequately addressed.

Microstresses can also trigger feelings of helplessness. The human brain can read uncertainty as a threat, triggering a fight-or-flight response. When one’s personal life, job, or even the world around them feels uncertain or in a state of upheaval, that is microstress at work.

Recovering Safety, Clarity, and Connection

Whether experiencing microstress at home, in relationships, at work, or in a broader sense, one must find ways to deal with these stressors before they lead to burnout. While microstressors may seem more easily manageable on an individual level, their constant presence and tendency to pile up make recovery all the more critical.

So, what can be done to help people deal with microstressors? To start, it’s crucial to foster environments of open communication and psychological safety no matter where one is. People should be aware of their need to take breaks and true downtime away from work obligations and family responsibilities.

Organizations should also strive to create cultures that value balance and wellness. These environments help empower individuals to properly care for themselves and their individual needs, not the least of which is adequate rest.

Everyone encounters stress, whether at home, work, school, or within relationships. It’s essential to recognize that when microstressors build, they can be just as consequential as major stress events. Recognizing and managing the weight of microstressors could be considered a societal imperative.

As people understand more about where microstress comes from and learn how to manage it, we can build more resilient organizational teams, closer relationships, families with better communication, and better personal life satisfaction with less burnout.

Author Bio

Laurie Cure, Ph.D., a leading voice in executive coaching, serves as the Founder & CEO of Innovative Connections. With a focus on consulting in strategic planning, organizational development, talent management, and leadership, Dr. Cure’s expertise in change management and culture evolution empowers her clients to achieve organizational success by enabling them to discover and release their human potential. She is the author of "Leading without Fear," a book that addresses workplace fear, and has contributed to numerous publications on leadership, coaching, team development, and emotions.

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