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The Mental stress phenomenon has increased in societies and organizations during the recent decades and jeopardized the
health of people, employees and managers. This article has surveyed the concept and CII uses of and approaches to mental
stress. First, Some definition_" have been reviewed, and then the author has presented his definition of mental stress. After showing
stress forllu1tion and its stages, stress symptoms have been explained. In this article, the symptoms have been categorized
info three major groups of bio1ogica1, l11enta1, and behavioral.
One important point, which has been considered in this article, is the relationship between mental stress and organizational
performance. The author has tried to explain the relationship between mental stress and decision-making, concentration of
thought for collecting information, inclination to leave the organization, the diminishing of motivation, job-satisfaction and
morale. The article has come to the conclusion that protracted and severe mental stresses cause disorder and decreae employee's
performance in organization.
Stressors are the vastest section of the article that has divided
stressors into five groups.


1- Individual stressors which include personality type, focus of control, self-concept, and physical illnesses.
2- Job stressors which have been divided into job nature, job
ambiguity, role conflict, conflict between roles, job overload or underload and job arrangement policy.
3- Management factors which include management power, management style and personality, and management planning and
organizing.
4- Organizational stressors that contain organizational c1imate,
ergonomics, rewarding system and organizational structure.
5- External factors which refer to social, economic and
technological conditions as well as geographical job changes.
The author suggests some approaches to lessen the ll1ental
stress at the end of the article: goal orientation, job and resource p1anning and organizing, improvement of organization,
atmosphere perception correction, increase of social support, reduction of perfectionism, mental and physiological health,
maintenance of logical balance in work, participation of people in job perfofll1ance, maintenance of physically suitable working
conditions, use of relaxation techniques, sports and healthy recreations are the basic approaches to cope with mental stresses.