Contemporary Issues in Aviation Medicine: The Effects of Stress on Pilots (Essay Sample)

Contemporary Issues in Aviation Medicine
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Contemporary Issues in Aviation Medicine
The Effects of Stress on Pilots
Introduction
Stress is a condition that affects all human beings at one time or another. Most people feel that stress is something that has adverse effects on the experience of human life. Human beings may experience mental or physical stress due to different causes that may related to their personal or professional lives. Physical stress can be caused by factors such as extreme cold, or heat. Psychological stress may be caused by conditions within the workplace, or the home. Stress generally comes about as a result of different environmental as well as physical factors, and can threaten a person’s mental or physiological state of well being
How Stress affects Pilots
Stress can be a positive or a negative thing. When it is a negative thing, it is known as distress. However, when it has positive results, it is identified as ‘Eustress’ (Yao, Chang, Xie, Cao, Sun, & Wu, 2008). Eustress is beneficial because it gives the person experiencing it incentive to work harder in order to achieve goals. Distress, however, is negative because it forces people to experience negative conditions, thus making them lose focus on what they were previously concentrating on. Distress can even result in accidents, when people get distracted from their responsibilities due to the amount of stress they are experiencing.
Pilots are entrusted with a lot of responsibility in regards to the lives of others. The phrase ‘flying fitness’ does not just refer to an actual physical fitness, but also has to do with mental fitness. A pilot does not just have to be physically fit, but also has to display the ability to correctly reflect on, perceive different situations, and act in ways that benefit the passengers even when encountering anxiety or problems while inflight. According to Yao, Chang, Xie, Cao, Sun, & Wu (2008) research has prove that in many cases where planes experience accidents, the pilot was subject to psychological adjustments as well as mental upsets. In any individual, the ability to reflect is affected by the emotions that the individual in question will be going through. In aviation, pilots will be subjected to stress during all stages of flight, and how they respond to such stressors is what will affect how they conduct the flight.
Where pilots are concerned, even normal work conditions have stressors like the presence of vibrations, loud noise, accelerative forces, and reduced barometric pressure (Yao, Chang, Xie, Cao, Sun, & Wu, 2008). Their bodies also have to adjust to the existence of conditions such as fatigue which is caused by the interference of normal sleep-wake cycles. It is, thus, not a surprise that in many nations, pilots are perceived as being arrogant, insensitive, irritable, impatient, and blunt with others.
Sources of Stress
The stresses that are often experienced by pilots can be divided into different groups. Physical stressors are those which make it difficult for the individual pilot to be able to perform his or her duties. For instance, temperature could be said to be a physical stressor. During flight, it is not uncommon for the cockpit to experience a build-up of heat. This then results in increased heart-rate and perspiration. In addition, there will be experiences of changing air pressure within the cockpit as a result of turbulence. Such changes can make the body experience g-forces which increase the challenge of controlling and directing the plane. Pilots may also find it difficult to read navigational charts because of the constant vibration that is experienced in the cockpit. According to Sauvet, Jouanin, Langrume, Van Beers, Papelier, & Dussault (2009), the normal cockpit experiences 75-80Db in terms of noise levels. It is quite common for pilots have to develop hearing problems due to this problem.The pilots who fly small planes are particularly vulnerable to hearing disorders. Another physical stressor has to do with weather conditions. There are many times when pilots experience poor visibility when navigating through rain, or even wind.
Psychological stressors have to do with factors that create anxiety, or worry, in pilots. Psychological stressors are particularly dangerous because they can cause over-anxiousness, which then affects how the pilots operate. According to Linton (2004) there are different issues that cause pilots to experience psychological stress. For instance, they may experience financial stress due to a continuing recession, impending bankruptcy, and even mortgages which they have to pay. Marital conflct also affect the way pilots perform their work. One of the more common types of psychological stressors are caused by interpersonal problems that crop up between colleagues in the workplace. Such an issue is extremely stressing because it results in a lot of backstabbing, as well as miscommunication.
There are also physiological stressors that are related with the workplace, or the physical condition of individual pilots. For instance, there are pilots who are compelled to fly even when they are unwell. This may be due to the existence of tight schedules, or the lack of available substitutes. Pilots also usually have to forego sleep, as well as meals, due to their flying schedules. This leaves them with a lack of energy, as well as physical symptoms such as headaches. In addition, a tired pilot will not be able to accord his full attention to the task at hand. This puts his or her passengers in danger. All pilots experience debilitating jet lag because they have to keep flying on a regular basis. This disturbs their concentration, while also generating a lot of fatigue.
Handling Stress
There are different ways in which individuals deal with different stresses. Those with certain personalities are able to prevent the build-up of stress by seeking help for their problems once they sense them. According to Elmenhorst, Vejvoda, Maass, Wenzel, Plath, Schubert, & Basner (2009) the pilot who experiences stress first has to identify it. Pilots are people who are entrusted with the lives of thousands of people every year. They develop a feeling of invincibility as they move through the ranks. Admitting to the existence of a personal or psychological problem is perceived as being ‘weak’. In addition, they might be worried about their employers discovering that they have mental problems. Admitting to the existence of actual problems is something that takes time, in the case of most pilots.
There are definite factors, such as taking care of the physical body through exercise and the consumption of balanced diets, which ensure that stress is kept at a minimum. Pilots can also try to ensure that they benefit from sufficient sleep before undertaking their duties. Psychologically, pilots have to ensure that they are well informed about the different processes that they will use. Sound preparation in terms of the...