Zosimo T. Literatus, R.M.T.
Breakthroughs
IN his work, “Science and Human Transformation: Subtle Energies, Intentionality and Consciousness,” William Tiller wrote: “The shift from incoherence to coherence can bring dramatic effects: a 60-watt light bulb whose light waves could be made coherent as a laser, would have the power to bore a hole through the sun—from 90 million miles away.” What is true to astronomy and physics can also be true to occupational health.
A recent study conducted on Japanese factory workers found that even a sense of coherence (SOC) in work enables workers to cope with their job demand, which is a potent job stressor.
It simply means that the more your job makes sense to you, the better you can withstand job stress.
Kayoko Urakawa of the Mie University (Mie, Japan) and Kazuhito Yokoyama of the Juntendo University School of Medicine (Tokyo, Japan) found out that married workers appeared to better find SOC than unmarried workers, even slightly better so than managers compared to non-managerial employees. Older employees too have higher SOC than younger ones.
Urakawa believed that higher stress-coping ability rises in people with a wealth of experience. Thus, SOC can be acquired through life experience.
Moreover, the study also noted that social support provides a significant protection against adverse impact on workers’ mental well-being, particularly among women. Men, on the other hand, took comfort in the latitude of decision they could make in their job.
So what does SOC means to an employee? It assures them that what they do at work is as structured, predictable, and understandable as their own inner selves.
It means that resources are available to the employee so they can meet the demands posed at work. It also tells them that such work demands challenge them as well as represent something worth doing and spending time on. Without these, work becomes a heavy load that fails to connect to the employee as a living person, a dehumanizing activity. And that can make the work life a living hell in itself.
Spanish film director Luis Buñuel got it beautifully: “You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all—just as an intelligence without the possibility of expression is not really an intelligence.
Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it, we are nothing.”
Cherish those memories then, and let them make your life more worth living.
(E-mail: zim_breakthroughs@yahoo.com; blog: http://breakthroughs.today.blogspot.com)