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Stress is an everyday reality in the aviation industry, especially to pilots. Pilots face different

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Stress is an everyday reality in the aviation industry, especially to pilots. Pilots face different kinds of stress on the job. Overload and underload on pilots is common and has always been overlooked. As a result, poses a threat to aviation safety. The society should pay a considerable attention to this issue. This essay will discuss the effect of stress on pilot performance and ways to relief stress. It begins with definitions of stress, then it will mention the causes of stress. The essay then explores on the relevance to aviation industry. Finally, the essay will give suggestions on how to cope with stress. As a future commercial airline pilot, this topic has great relevance as stress could not be avoided in the aviation industry. It …show more content…

Internal sources of stress may come from an individual's perception to an event, and the individual's personality and fear. External sources of stress in the cockpit may include, turbulence, dehydration, eye strain and lack of oxygen. Walonick(1993) has mentioned Abrecht's work(1979), which argues that nearly all stressors are emotionally induced. Emotionally induced stress usually arise from imagination. In addition, emotionally induced stress can be further divided into four categories of time stress, anticipatory stress, situational stress and encounter stress Time stress is due to a real or imaginary deadline. Anticipatory stress is caused by perceiving an upcoming event will be unpleasant. Situational stress arise when an individual faces unpleasant event and worries about what happen next. Encounter stress occurs when there is a contact with others. Time stress is the most common among pilots as 'A pilot lives a life of deadlines.'(Jeeva and Chandramohan, 2008). Stress can also be caused by alcohol consumption, self medication, drug, tobacco use, inadequate diet and nutrition. In short, we may encounter stress everyday and it is unavoidable.

Overload and underload of stress has great relation to aviation safety. Overload and underload refers to the stress at a level that is too high or too low, that is uncontrollable by the pilot 'Personality inadequacies in coping with stress seem to result in

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