Handling Stress at the Workplace

How to handle and reduce stress at work

The only difference between the people who hate and the people who love their jobs is how often they contemplate leaving for good. While the first ones think about it every day, the latter ones do so only a few times a month. The reason for this is stress at the workplace. Seeing how one’s livelihood and entire future depend on this, no one can remain level headed all the time.

With various deadlines, responsibilities and interpersonal dealings, the workplace can quickly become a source of ongoing stress.

Furthermore, people who work in a dynamic workplace constantly need to deal with new issues, which makes things even more difficult. Needless to say, this has two major downsides. First, it is extremely bad for one’s mental and even physical health. Second, it diminishes one’s performance at work. In order not to allow this to happen to you, here are several ways in which you can handle stress at the workplace.

How to Recognize It?

Stressed people can resort to self abuses, such as food binge.

While some may believe that the very sensation of stress is hard to miss, they are usually confusing panic attacks, crippling anxiety or plain aggressiveness with it. This state, however, has some subtle early symptoms you would be wise to look out for. The feeling of depression, the loss of interest in work, problems with sleep and the loss of sex drive are just some of them.

People under stress also tend to withdraw to themselves and often also resort to alcohol and drug abuse. Finally, they also have trouble sleeping and this also causes severe cases of fatigue.

Changing Your Lifestyle

While it is true that your problem may be workplace-related, this doesn’t mean you should try to solve it at the workspace. Sure, squeezing a stress-ball causes no harm, but you cannot just depart in the middle of your work hours in order to blow off some steam. This must be done at home. However, by this, we don’t mean that you should just do a single exercise whenever you become anxious. What you need to do is change your lifestyle around.

Sometime the work pressures become unbearable and one needs to blow off some steam, preferably at home, to reduce the ongoing stress.

Start by eating better, exercising regularly and sleeping whenever you feel the need to. Even though they may seem great, short-term energy drinks and coffee are not adequate substitutes. Furthermore, you should also try and find an exhaust vent, a hobby or a relaxing activity you can do at your spare time. In this way, whenever you feel overwhelmed at work, you can just start thinking of this as your happy place.

Evaluate Your Situation

When your work stress is getting to you, it's time to evaluate your work situation.

One of the first things you can do in order to avoid getting stressed out is to assess the situation you are in. Sometimes our stress is caused by unrealistically high expectations, which we fail to fulfill. As the deadlines to these impossible goals approach, we get more and more anxious and dissatisfied that we have failed to meet them.

Furthermore, some people tend to drive themselves harder than they should. Sure, you may believe even this isn’t enough, but the truth is that both your mind and body have their durability. You cannot work past your limits and expect the results to remain the same. You also cannot expect that this kind of lifestyle won’t take a toll on your mental health.

One last piece of advice, sometimes your stress situation will be more complicated than it may seem and this is why you might want to consult a professional. Having a quick psychological assessment can’t hurt and it may do wonders for your future mental health.

The worst problem with workplace stress is that it doesn’t stay in the office when you leave for home. In this way, it hurts your private life, as well. Still, no matter how difficult all this may seem, the comforting fact is that all of the control is in your hand. You and you alone have the means necessary to fight with this problem and turn your life around.

All above images courtesy of Creative Commons

Author bio:

Diana Smith is a full time mom of two beautiful girls and a passionate writer. In her free time she enjoys writing interesting and informative posts on women's health and fitness related themes.

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