Stress in the Culinary Industry - Research Paper Example

Stress in the Culinary Industry The field of culinary industry is one of the most vigorous, opening career opportunities which vary from cooks at restaurants to personal chefs. Nearly 3.1 million jobs in 2004 are food related professions, including chefs, cooks and food preparation workers employed in restaurants, food services and drinking places (Global Foresight Inc., 2006). The need to cater excellent food service with aims at satisfying customers, the industry of culinary arts has been exhaustive towards its personnel. To be one working in the industry one must have patience, patronization of work and most of all entailing the knowledge with foods, functions of ingredients, and kitchen standard operating procedures. From the respective academic institutions, culinary arts professionals were prepared for work in restaurants and hospitality industry by focusing on the development of kitchen skills and food handling techniques in both the baking and culinary specialty areas. Working in the culinary industry requires long hours and fast pace movement. The latter has been considered to be the major causes of stress in the field of culinary arts. Everyone cannot do away from irritants and stressors present in the environment. Specifically, considering the nature of work in the culinary industry, human resources are also prone to stress, depending on how one deal with the stressors and irritants they are exposed to. The term stress is a common term but is usually use in a variety of different ways. It could refer to a stimulus, to a response, or to a combination of both. Sometimes, it is used to mean stressful stimulus or stressor. Though there has been no universally accepted definition of stress, it could also simply be the relationship between the person and the environment that is appraised as taxing or exceeding his or her resources and endangering his or her well being (Cotton) . A stressor, on the other hand, is any stimulus perceived as a threat, which is could be grouped in categories such as global, nonspecific, and impersonal factors completely external to the individual. The Four Major Types of Stress It is said that “stress is in the eye of the beholder”, that is the experience of being stressed depends on what particular scenario one notices and how one choose to appraise or interpret them. As such in the culinary industry, how either the chef, cook or food preparation workers, deal with a certain stress is subjective. One could be stressed by one stimulus, but has no effect to the other. As there are different responses to events that may cause stress in the culinary industry, there has been various classification of stress published by different authors. In this paper, the four major types of stress are considered, which includes eustress, distress, hyperstress, and hypostress (The Health Center). In the same context the four major types of stress as described by Weiten, including frustration, conflict, change, and pressure will be incorporated. It has been pointed by experts in the culinary industry the importance of feeling good, with a healthy mind, body and spirit. The later should be possessed by personnel in the culinary industry to withstand the stresses of the job that would make them vulnerable to substance abuse such as long sleeping hours, being on their feet all day, disruption of their body clocks and then wanting to get up to a quick euphoria. Eustress Eustress is a type of short-term stress that provides immediate strength, which arises at points of increased physical activity, enthusiasm, and creativity. Eustress is a positive stress that arises when motivation and inspiration are needed. Physical activity, enthusiasm and creativity are the characteristics one must have in the culinary industry. Usually a chef / cook experiences eutress before the commencement of the job. It is always inevitable that before the onset of doing something, especially when one is new to the job, one has to propel motivation and inspiration within itself. The negative result, on the other hand, though inevitable, eustress could lead to frustration when the pursuit of a certain goal is thwarted. It is the feeling when someone wants something and was not able to achieve it. Oftentimes, when one engaged in culinary industry is expecting too much from work and was not able to reach the point of contentment, the person is prone to frustration. In simpler examples, even getting caught in traffic jams and lack of coordination between co-workers would cause stress. Frustration could be brief and insignificant which could easily be forgotten. However, frustration could also be a source of significant stress. Particular example of highly stressful frustration is failures and losses. The aforementioned kinds and causes of stress could elicit anger and physical symptoms. Sometimes the person itself is the one setting high goals for themselves. As such in the culinary industry, one is prone to frustration when he is exerting too much effort yet get unnoticed and were deprived of something that they’re accustomed to having. It could best be illustrated, if someone is trying to astonish a higher person of authority or customers in a certain restaurant, yet despite of all the efforts, one doesn’t get applauded for something he / she have done. Oftentimes, the stress derived from work could cause misunderstanding at home, in which if one is not able to cope and understand the situation would lead to worse results. With the stressors in the culinary industry such as standing all day long and pressure at work, a relaxing home would ease the stress of frustration one is feeling. Distress Distress is a negative stress brought about by constant readjustments or alterations in a routine. Normally, everyone in the working industry, especially those having immediate supervisors are prone to this kind of stress. In the culinary industry, quality is of importance, the reason that supervisors are very much nosy is to assure the maintenance of quality food and service. A worker in restaurants and food service who is often commended, experiences feelings of discomfort and unfamiliarity. There are two types of distress, acute and chronic. Acute stress is an intense stress that arrives and disappears quickly. Chronic stress, on the other hand, is a prolonged stress that exists for weeks, months, or even years. The negative feedback of distress is the arising of conflicts between employees in the culinary industry. Conflict is also a stimulant of stress. It occurs when two or more incompatible motivations or behavioural impulses compete for expression. A conflict in the work place creates an unhealthy environment. It sometimes creates depression to the involved personnel. Hyperstress Hyperstress occurs when an individual is pushed beyond what he or she can handle. The chefs, cook, and food preparation workers are exposed to this stress especially in busy restaurants. Restaurants with many customers makes high profit, yet would at times lead to overloaded or overworked crews. When someone is hyperstressed, even little things can trigger a strong emotional response. Hypertress is often experienced in high pressure kitchens. Though high pressure and high-end kitchens are locally or worldly renowed, studies have shown that restaurant crews are also the ones engaging to substance abuse of alcohols and even drugs (Grohol). Pressure can be viewed, as either, pressure to perform or pressure to conform. The stress to perform consistently and produce high-quality food of excellence day-in and day-out is overwhelming to most chefs (Grohol). After a stressful job, chefs find it reasonable of dealing with stress or bullying is by resorting to alcohol or substance abuse. This is usually done either during or after working hours. Oftentimes, the negative effect of hyperstress is not limited only in the work place but is eventually carried at home. Although there are no records showing divorce rates in the culinary industry, considering that hyperstress is experienced in busy kitchens, this stressful job would lead to occurrences of divorce among workers. Hyperstress from work could result to the entanglement of family ties and could be one of the causes of divorce and broken families. Hypostress Hypostress is the opposite of hyperstress. Hypostress occurs when an individual is bored or unchallenged. If hyperstress is closely linked to the stressful environment due to the many customers in busy restaurants, hypostress on the other hand, is related to a restaurant scenario where the crews are restless and uninspired due to the lack of customers to be served. A restaurant worker who performs repetitive tasks might experience hypostress. Because of hypostress, one is continuously being drive to seek for change. Management of Stress in the Culinary Industry How a person deals with stress is somehow complex and multidimensional. Stress affects a person in different levels. Dealing with stress could be an emotional response wherein a person shows annoyance and anger. It could also be a physiological response in case that the effect to the person is, for example, the knotting of the stomach and pulse quickening. It could also be a behavioural response when one is shouting and insulting another (Weiten). There have been a variety of options on how to cope with stress. In the culinary industry, in particular, most chefs often deal stress by resorting to the use of alcohol and substance or drug abuse. As some of the industry workers blurt out, they tend to engage in alcoholic drinking or worse to drug addiction because of the depression they derived from working with the culinary industry. They got to experience a feeling of low self-esteem and self-worth. Several cases were described by Simma Liebermann Associates in their article on cleaning up substance abuse. The articles revealed how chefs were able to cope with addiction to alcohol and drugs and how they regain healthy and normal living. There are ways on how to deal and overcome stress. First is through behavioural therapy. This therapy teaches a person on how to calm the mind and body, to make one feel better, think more clearly and make better decisions. It helps weaken the connections between troublesome situations and habitual reactions. Through behavioural therapy, reactions common to stress such as irritability, anxiety, depression, anger, and self-damaging behavior can be controlled. The second option on how to deal with stress is through cognitive therapy. Resolving the cognitive aspect of stress can mean less worrying, less unpleasant thoughts, and a positive outlook on life. Cognitive therapy teaches you how certain thinking patterns are causing your symptoms — by giving you a distorted picture of whats going on in your life, and making you feel anxious, depressed or angry for no apparent reason, or provoking you into negative actions. The third way on how to deal with stress is literary therapy, which is done through gathering information about stress and the processes of healing from books, articles and research materials. This method could provide processes for controlling and resolving personal issues. The fourth option of how to manage stress is through talk therapy. Talk therapy involves the idea of healing through communication. Communicating ones thoughts and feeling to friends, family members, or a therapist can help one to find support for those dealing with stress. Communication is natural to humans, and discussing one’s problems is a way to the healing process. Dealing with stress through alcohol and substance abuse is just a short term method of forgetting. It often does not lead to complete healing, rather towards destruction. There are many chefs as cited in Simma Liebermann Associates who are victims of alcohol and substance abuse but were renewed after series of therapy programs. Conclusion Stress is everywhere. The only thing that varies is the perception and response of people towards stress. The culinary industry is one of the most busiest and stressful areas in the society. Workers in the culinary industry are exposed to the different types of stress. Because of the highly stressful and high-end service demand from this industry, many of its workers have resorted to unhealthy living by engaging into alcohols and drugs just to cope with stress they derived from the nature of work they are into. However, as have been experienced and revealed by some culinary workers, dealing stress with alcohol and drugs does not help at all. It often heads to the wrong direction and does not have an easy way out. It is important to deal and manage stress during its early stages with the proper medications and other options like the above presented therapies. As Liebermann stressed out, the need to educate owners, managers and workers during younger stages about alcohol and drug abuse is very much necessary. One must know the behavioral signs of abuse, how to not enable the user and how to get help for yourself and your employee. It must be reiterated that proper management of stress is essential for individual and for company growth. References: Cotton, Dorothy. Stress Management. New York: Brunner/Mazel Inc. , 1990. Grohol, John. Blog index: Substance Abuse Amongst Chefs. 21 April 2008. 26 February 2011 . Lieberman, Simma. Articles: Cleaning Up Substance Abuse. 26 February 2011 . The Health Center. Adults: Stress. 2006. 26 February 2011 . Weiten, Wayne. Pschychology Themes and Variations. CA: Wadsworth , 2007. Read More