I have never personally felt stressed when actually controlling, as the buzz I get from doing the job outweighs anything that could stress me.
However, as I am sure many others will agree, there are many things in the work place (not just in ATC) that can cause an employee to feel stressed. I am sure that you will find that any reports of employee stress in ATC are not related to doing the actual job, but are related to the workplace environment, management/colleague attitudes and practices, bullying and harrasment (thankfully rare these days) and indeed personal or financial problems that everyone has to face from time to time.
I don't think you will find any ground breaking revelations that stress suffered by Air Traffic Controllers is any different to that suffered by employees working elsewhere. In fact due to the strict licencing process we are subject to, and the fact that your mates at work can pick up when you are "not yourself" before you can, makes sure that stress rarely makes it into the operational areas.
I believe that stress is subjective, and the label that ATC is "stressful" is actually a misunderstanding of the job. ATC is challenging and requires skill and a certain type of persona to deal with it. However the same can be said for being a nurse, doctor, road worker, taxi driver, accountant etc. Each of these vocations could be classed as "stressful" in their own way.
Stress has been described to me as a natural human defence reaction due to exposure to a particular set of difficult or undesireable circumstances. When you remove or alter those circumstances, the stress dissapears or becomes less.
Perhaps this should be the approach more people and managers take toward stress as opposed to typecasting it as an "illness", "problem" or "condition" that one suffers from, thereby laying the blame at the employees feet.
Would be interested to see others thoughts on the matter though!!
