JOB STRESSOR NO. 3: A Work Environment That Makes You Feel Insecure (or Unsafe)

Distressing events in the news, such as workplace shootings and terrorism, as well as more common occurrences like sexual harassment, irate customers, back-stabbing co-workers and incompetent or temperamental managers all can make you feel vulnerable and powerless.

What this can do to your body and spirit
Fear about the safety of your work environment can cause increases in blood pressure, muscle tension and heart rate. Chronic fear and anxiety can lead to emotional ailments such as irritability, depression, anxiety attacks and even post-traumatic stress disorder.

How you can reduce this stress
- Evaluate your anxieties. Try to separate rational worries, such as concerns about an erratic boss, from fears about less-likely events such as bioterrorism. For example, if you work in customer service at a department store, facing irate members of the public is a more likely stressor than a terrorist attack. After you determine what worries are most grounded in reality, work with friends or a therapist to create strategies for coping with the situations most likely to occur.

- Don't isolate yourself. "There's a tremendous value in forming relationships at work," says Reinhold. "If you feel isolated and lonely, you're going to feel more afraid." Also, having friends at work helps when you need to talk over how to get that creepy guy from accounting to stop hitting on you or why your boss keeps snapping.

- Take action. If you are being oppressed by a co-worker, harassed (sexually or verbally) by a boss, or tormented by a client or customer, speak up! A human-resources or union representative can advise you on what to do, and taking action will give you a sense of control over the situation.

JOB STRESSOR NO. 4: Rigid Hours and Work Schedule

Having little or no flexibility in your work hours and schedule is very stressful, particularly to working mothers.

What this can do to your body and spirit
A lack of control can make you feel hopeless and pessimistic. "If you're stuck in a situation where you feel helpless to make it better, you're at a high risk for depression," Domar says. For working mothers who must work around the schedules of their employers, child-care providers, schools, kids' athletic events and musical recitals, etc., the lack of flexibility is especially taxing, physically and emotionally.

How you can reduce this stress
- Cultivate good work relationships. If you're on good terms with your manager and co-workers, you will be in a better position to negotiate change.

- Gather a group of like-minded co-workers and approach your manager to propose solutions. "Flexibility enhances productivity and profitability, and decreases the number of sick days for workers," Reinhold says. "Talk with your manager about how you can find ways to create a flexible program in your workplace."

- Be a star performer. "If you're a very good worker, you have a much better chance of being granted flexibility," Reinhold says.

"I revamped my life"

No matter how distressing your job is, you do have options, as Heather Case found. After realizing that by working excessively she was missing out on too much, she decided to make major changes. "I threw in the towel and revamped my entire life," Case says. She quit her public-relations position in New York City, landed a job as communications manager at The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., and bought a house five minutes from work.

She still puts in about 50 hours a week, but she has far more free time. "I have time to reconnect with the people who are important in my life, and to nurture the relationships with my friends that I had tossed aside for a few years." She also has time to exercise. Instead of squeezing in occasional two-mile runs, she has joined a competitive running club and now covers five or six miles four or five times a week. "I feel like a different person," Case says. "I have a whole new perspective now."