The aim of this article is to introduce the notion of “Spirituality and stress at work”. On the contrary of what you can think, spirituality does not only refer to religion. Actually, here we talk about non-religious spirituality. More specifically, spirituality at work is a set of feelings that allow an individual to give meaning to his or her life and, thus, to feel sensations of well-being, completeness and fulfillment. This set is made of :
- the feeling of personal accomplishment, including an idea of surpassing yourself, an idea of transcendence.
- a feeling of connection to the others, associated with compassion and trust.
- a feeling of alignment with organizational values.
The notion of spirituality at work is relatively new and only few studies have been done. Some of them have shown that spirituality at work would have an impact on individual and organizational performances. But then, what about it’s influence on stress ?
The creation of tools to measure spirituality at work has allowed some researchers to conduct studies on the link between spirituality and specific dimensions such as well-being at work. For example, in 2016, Pawar measured the psychological, social and emotional well-being of a population of employees from different organizations and found a positive correlation between these three types of well-being and spirituality at work. These results are confirmed in 2020 by Kent and al. who mention the moderating role of spiritual experiences on the relationship between stress factors and well-being. In the 1990s, Underwood developed a scale to measure spiritual experience in everyday life (DSES). According to her, daily spiritual experiences would be resources that would allow an individual, according to certain dispositional characteristics, to develop resilience. So, they would allow stress to be reduced by giving the feeling that things have meaning. According to a study by Herren and al. (2019) with an African American population, a high frequency of spiritual experiences could mitigate the negative influence of depressive symptoms on cognitive functioning. Furthermore, Whitehead and Bergeman (2012) looked at daily stress in a population of 244 senior citizens. They showed that daily spiritual experiences attenuated the negative effect of perceived stress and had a direct effect on positive feelings.
So, in view of the growth of stress at work today, it seems interesting to think about spirituality as a factor reducing stress. The question of meaning at work, and therefore in life in general, is very important for individual’s well-being.
Sources :
Duyck, J. Y., & Mhenaoui, I. (2013). La spiritualité et l’entreprise. RIMHE Revue Interdisciplinaire Management, Homme Entreprise, (4), 57-70
Holland, J. M., & Neimeyer, R. A. (2005). Reducing the risk of burnout in end-of-life care settings : The role of daily spiritual experiences and training. Palliative and Supportive Care, 3(3), 173-181. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1478951505050297
Underwood, L. G., & Vagnini, M. A. (2020). Ordinary Spiritual Experiences : Positive Effects on Resilience, Burnout, and Addictions. Dans Spirituality and Psychology : Foundations, Concepts and Applications : Dunod.