People experience stress every day. They are demanding, their bills soar, and their family issues. One of the most common sources of stress is work, which can compromise productivity, and relationships with colleagues. Hence, these stressors must be identified, acted upon, and eliminated.
To effectively eliminate your stress at work, you must first identify its cause. For example, if the cause of your focus is the strained relationship you have with your boss, then the easiest way to deal with it is to approach your boss and talk about it. If you are stressed about too many tasks, you might have to finish them one by one or ask for help from your colleagues.
The good news about stress is that there are many ways by which you can manage it. Here are simple tips on how you can deal with your stress at work:
1. Proper time management.
Unable to manage time properly is one of the most frequent problems employees encounter in their workplace. The deadlines are killing them, and they do not know how to do their tasks.
Time management is an essential skill that you have to learn if you want to finish your tasks on time without compromising output quality. Of course, developing this skill might take time, but with constant practice, you will surely get the dynamics pretty well.
The first step towards time management is the identification of all the things that you have to do. This is most effectively achieved with the use of a journal. List down everything you are expected to accomplish- paper works, project proposal presentations, and the like. Now that you already have a list of the things you have to work on, you must prioritize which task is the most important or which must be accomplished in the most immediate period. Opposite your list of items, jot down the expected date or time of accomplishment. In short, indicate their deadlines. This will most likely help you prioritize each one of them. The item or task that must be accomplished the soonest should be prioritized. You can also prioritize your tasks according to the degree of importance. For example, if your project proposal presentation will lead you to your promotion, then, by all means, prioritize it.
The third and final step in time management is sticking to your plan. First, you must follow the schedule you have set because any delays or changes in the program can cause you stress. For example, you could not do your task today and were planning on doing it the next day. The danger here is that your homework for that next day would pile up, and there is an excellent probability that you will not finish them again. This goes on like a vicious cycle until you cannot do them anymore.
2. Be flexible.
Being flexible is essential not only for adaptation but also for managing your time. You have already learned about how to work your time correctly, and by now, you might have already recognized the possibility of unexpected events occurring that may alter the schedule you made. If this happens, flexibility is the only way to go. First, try to rearrange your schedule such that it can fit all your activities in. Second, you should set some extra time in your schedule for emergency circumstances. Do not pack your day with activities. Instead of scheduling your activities one after the other, leave some time for rest or breaks in between.
Flexibility is also put to the test when there are problems arising in your workplace. For example, there could be sudden changes in your schedule- instead of going home from work at 6 p.m., you have to stay until much later. There could also be times when you are transferred to a different department after spending 5 or so years with your previous department. One must adapt easily to a new working environment, with new colleagues, and with new tasks.
3. Take a break.
Most workaholics make the biggest mistake of not taking a break from their work. They work almost 12 hours a day for 5 to 6 days without rest. They might think their body is already accustomed to this habit, but they do not know that their cells are gradually getting worn out. If this stays on, the person might get sick due to exhaustion and suppressed immune system.
Taking a break does not mean you have to go out of town for several days. It simply means that you need some time off from work. You can take a break by taking a deep breath a few times while reading a hundred-page protocol or while in a long meeting. All you need is to take your mind off what you are doing for a few seconds.
Try doing something new during your coffee break. For example, instead of going to the cafeteria to grab some snacks or a cup of coffee, why not try to go out of your office building, walk around for a few minutes, sit on one of the garden benches, and close your eyes for a few minutes? Take a deep breath and enjoy the fresh air and heat of the sun. This does not only relax you but also keeps you healthy. Taking a deep breath promotes oxygen transport to the dibody partsr body, while the sun rays help you convert your vitamin D to its active form.
During your day off, try not to think about your work. Stay at home and do nothing. Well, this is a good excuse to be a couch potato. Watch a good movie, read your favorite book even though you have read it multiple times already, and eat a lot. Taking a break from work means giving yourself some treats.
4. Stay healthy.
Most people get sick and stressed because they adopt an unhealthy lifestyle. Overworking deprives you of sleep, good food, and exercise. Try to maintain a healthy lifestyle while working.
Have you ever experienced getting easily irritated after a sleepless night? Irritability and moodiness are just some of the most common effects of lack of sleep. For example, through sleep, your body regains energy lost during the day. It is also during sleep when your cells regenerate. Hence, lack of sleep deprives your body of the chance to recuperate. The damaged cells that should have been replaced during sleep stay within your body, which may lead to an illness later on. 6 to 7 hours of sleep allows you to function optimally.
Eating a balanced diet does not only keep you healthy, but it surely keeps you stress-free. Eat foods rich in vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants to help prevent toxins from damaging cells and augment your immune response.
Exercising regularly is another way of staying healthy while working. Do not be intimidated by this word. Most people would refuse to exercise because they think that they still have to go to the gym just to do it. Well, the good news is you don’t have to. Walking around your office building every day for 15 minutes or so would suffice. Other simple exercises you can do are to jog around your neighborhood for 20 minutes three times a week, use a bicycle instead of a car when going to the grocery or to the mall, and do stretching exercises upon waking up.
5.Do your tasks one at a time.
With so many demands from work, people tend to multitask. They are reading their reports while talking with someone on the telephone, or they are doing so much paperwork simultaneously. People think that multitasking saves them a great deal of time, but it turns out that it actually does the opposite. Multitasking is an error-prone practice. When you do so many reports simultaneously, you might write the wrong statements or information on your paper. You are also most likely to miss an important detail when multitasking. When you talk with your colleagues while reading something, you might miss noting some information you are reading.
Fighting off your stressors at work might be difficult, but with the help of some tips mentioned above, you can surely overcome them.