Anyone who has held a job for more than a day will tell you that the work environment can be a great place to meet new people and gain new skills. However, if the same individual wants to be honest, they’ll tell you that the workplace can also be a place where your stress levels could rise to their highest. This stress can start off as simple apprehensions about missed deadlines, discussing salary increases, or talking about performance. However, if not properly handled, it could end up snowballing out of control.
The good thing is that it is within your power to take action to reduce your job-related stress levels.
1. Exercise during working hours
Visit any website, and if it’s useful enough, it will tell you that exercising during working hours can be a great way of reducing stress. While the benefits of exercise are generally well known, many studies are starting to show that exercising can improve your mood; which in turn has a positive impact on your performance.
It is also known that a proper exercise gives you a better night’s sleep. If you sleep well at night, you are likely to have more energy during the day to be more productive and, therefore, have less stress about performance.
Exercise does not need to be anything hectic. A 20-minute brisk walk on the treadmill or doing a walking meeting daily could make a difference. Even looking for a fitness studio website design service and starting sharing fitness advice could encourage you to be more active.
2. Know what stresses you
Knowing what stresses, you could be the beginning of dealing with stress at work. To identify the kinds of situations which trigger your stress at work, you may need to keep a record. A simple journal where you record the details associated with your stress is one of the most effective methods.
Whenever you feel stressed at work, take note of your feelings, thoughts, and other factors such as people involved. Knowing which situations stress you will help you devise ways of dealing with them or avoiding them. For instance, you may discover that you always get stressed when you attend a meeting for which you are not prepared. A simple way of dealing with this will be to prepare for all your meetings in advance.
3. Take breaks
Whoever invented breaks is a genius. They knew that when people are tired, they are likely to find even simple tasks challenging. When the most basic of tasks start to challenge you, you are likely to start questioning your ability. This can be a source of stress.
Taking a break gives you time to recover. This recovery process should involve a period of switching off from all work-related activities. If you decide to take a holiday to recover from a hectic time at work, ensure that it is indeed a holiday. Leave your computer and home and switch off your work email addresses. If you can, switch off your mobile devices and unwind.
4. Talk to someone
It’s easy to think that solutions to work stress have to be complicated, but they can be as simple as talking to someone. This is the reason why it’s important to have someone you trust, whether at work or outside work. When you talk to someone you trust, it’s much easier to say how exactly you feel.
When you discuss problems with someone, you’re likely to get a different perspective of whatever is stressing you. For instance, another person may have experienced your situation before, and they could tell you how they overcame it. Sometimes after talking to someone you may discover that what is stressing you is not as grave as you’re thinking of it to be.
When you talk to someone, try to identify someone who is outside the situation. This could be a professional counselor. The advantage of an independent person is that they are not likely to have any opinions about you and how you ought to be doing things. Hence, you never have to worry about someone passing judgment on you.
5. Be organized
One of the main stressors at work is a feeling of being overwhelmed. While people can indeed be overwhelmed when managers don’t think carefully about the amount of work allocated to employees, it is also possible that this feeling is coming from your own lack of organization.
When your work is disorganized, you are likely to be always working under pressure. Apart from this, you end up with a long list of things which could make you panic.
To be organized, start by setting your goals and being clear about what you want to accomplish. Break this into a to-do list and then allocate time to different tasks. This will tell you in advance how much time you need in order to accomplish all your tasks. If there is too much work, then you can always seek assistance before its too late.
