Stress at Work and in Life

Being stressed out affects everything from mental health to productivity. This article will focus on six tips for coping with stress at work and in life. Stress can lead to a wide range of negative repercussions throughout our communities, impacting our mental, physical and social well-being at home and at work. While stress is not a new concept, according to HR Insights, it’s getting worse for many of us these days.

Three recent national surveys show that work stress is a growing problem. A new survey by Harris Interactive shows that 10% more workers are stressed this year when compared to last year, and that about 8 in 10 workers (of 1,019 surveyed) report being stressed by something at work. Only 17% of workers say that nothing stresses them out about their jobs.

The general causes of stress tend to be similar. According to doctor David Posen’s book Is Work Killing You the primary issues that lead to stress, burnout and low productivity come from the volume of work you need to do, velocity of tasks thrown your way and the type of working environment you’re doing it all in – the more abuse the more stress you’ll be feeling.

In a recent article, the Huffington Post outlined a number of ways you can  better manage your work-related stress. These include prioritizing sleep, exercising regularly, living a rich and engaging life and reducing the amount of multi-tasking you’re doing (apparently our brains were never designed to multitask). The article also recommends cultivating new relationships (which gets you around new people and experiences), writing stuff down and knowing when to leave work.

In addition to these tips, The Potentiality has our own top six stress relieving tips. Try them anytime you’re feeling cornered, anxious, nervous or anxious about a situation that feels out of control.

Coping with Stress

1. Go play in nature and exercise. Pretty self-explanatory and it helps. Being active is a terrific way to distract your mind from what troubles it and research shows that physical activity reduces stress.
2. Talk it out. You are not alone. Keep repeating this until you believe it and then find a trusted friend, colleague, boss or family member who you can transform from an uninterested third party into an active supporter or ally. Talking about your issue automatically signals that you can use help. You’ll be surprised about how many people are willing to shoulder pieces of your stress if you let them know you’re carrying it.
3. Simply stop and take five to ten deep breaths. One of the most helpful things to do is stop and consciously tell yourself to relax. Deep breaths help you physiologically feel better.
4. Itemize what you can accomplish. Stress is often felt when your problem or challenge is so big, it is hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. If you can break the problem down into little problems and then tick those problems off as you solve them, you’ll feel more in control and less stressed about the situation.
5. Laugh. Laughter releases all the good chemicals that will counter the bad chemicals (that’s science!). Granted, when under stress, you probably don’t feel like laughing. So fake it. Make your brain think you’re in control of a situation, when your brain senses that you are enjoying yourself it will reward you with all the good stuff. So smile, even if you’re not happy!
6. Look outside the fishbowl. When you’re stressed it is hard to see the bigger picture. The world seems wrapped around the one unsolvable problem. So make sure to remind yourself that the crushing feeling you are experiencing will pass and than a few weeks from now, you probably won’t even remember what you were so stressed about.

And if you are an HR manager, business leader or a people manager with influence, be sure to review this article by the Harvard Business Review’s Nanette Fondas, who argues that organizations need to incorporate ideas like the ones above into their organizational structure. This systems approach allows people to fully integrate balance and wellbeing into their life and work. Because, at the end of the day, there isn’t really work-life-balance, there’s just life. And people need to balance it!

There are certainly countless other ways to reign in your stress. But if you follow the tips above, we have no doubt you’ll be on your way to escaping the crushing feeling of helplessness and get back to that happy and in-control feeling we all know and love.