The State of Work in Australia study was initiated by Reventure, a new organisation specialising in faith and work research, utilising the Barna Group, a globally recognised polling firm.

Overall, 66% of Christian workers are satisfied with the amount of stress in their lives, compared to 61% in the general population.

“It is quite probably that the higher level of purpose and meaning that Christians find in their work offsets some of the stressful nature of their work,” explains Reventure Managing Director Dr Lindsay McMillan, “Satisfaction with stress levels correlates closely to with job satisfaction.”

It is important to realise that not all stress is bad. Everyone needs some level of stress to get motivated and productive, which is called eustress. At some point — which differs individually — the amount of stress becomes negative on effectiveness, leading to distress. For this reason, an individual’s satisfaction with stress is a more important measure than the overall stress one is feeling.

“An unexpected outcome of the survey is that Christians generally have a higher physical health rating than their colleagues at 52% versus 39%,” Dr McMillan said. “This appreciation of their physical health is one factor that might assist in dealing with unhealthy stress at work.”

Christian workers are also more likely to have much more positive mental health ratings than their colleagues. Those ranking their mental health as excellent or very good was 59%, compared to 48% for all workers.

“Christian workers follow similar overall trends in stress-mitigation activities, with the clear exception of much higher engagement in spiritual activities such as prayer and faith goals,” explained Dr McMillan. “These indicate that the dissatisfied and highly stressed are turning to spiritual activities even more.”

Details of the study:

The study was conducted in April 2016 and consisted of a nationally-representative survey of 1,001 Australian employed adults with an oversample of church attenders with 321 identifying as church-going Christians.

The study was representative of all major denominations.

The sample was balanced for gender and age and included fulltime (57%), part-time (33%) and 10% self-employed/independent workers.

The sample included a representation of workplace settings including 40% professional office workers, 12% working in retail, 11% working from home, 9% in education, 6% in a health setting.

For more information:

Contact Dr Lindsay McMillan,
Managing Director,
Reventure Ltd, +61 (0)409 186 322.

Source: BUV News