Is work anxiety and depression pushing you down and causing stress? Then you are in the right place; these stress management strategies are going to help you to cope with stress.
It doesn’t matter what your work demands; there are several steps you can take to prevent yourself from destructive effects of stress, perk up your job satisfaction and strengthen you well-being in and out of the workplace.
It’s a fact that there is no job without a stressful element, even if you are doing what you love. In the short term, you can face challenges regarding meeting deadlines and fulfilling burdensome obligations.
But when stress becomes constant, it can be damaging for your mental and physical health. You can’t avoid the tensions at the job, but you can manage work-related stress.
Major Factors of Work Stress and Anxiety
The following are some factors suppose to go hand in hand with work-related stress and anxiety.
- No control over job-related decisions
- Less salaries
- few growth opportunities
- indistinct performance prospect
- lack of social hold up
- extra workload
- unclear guideline regarding tasks
- leg-pulling by other colleagues
- unrealistic task completion deadlines
How Does Uncontrolled Stress Affect Your Well-Being
A stressful work environment can lead to so many problems like short temper, stomachache, constant headache, less sleep, and divert the attention from work. Constant stress is even worse; it causes high blood pressure, insomnia, anxiety feeble immune system. People who are facing Chronic stress mostly deal with overeating taking drugs, alcohol, and smoking cigarettes.
Techniques to Manage Stress
1. Keep a Journal
To track your stressors, you need to keep a journal for at least two weeks to identify the situations which create more stress and how you respond back. You must record your feelings; thoughts related to the environment don’t forget to add people involved and the physical setting last but not the least how you reacted. Did you shout or raise your voice loud? Maintaining notes will help you to find stressors and your reaction to them.
2. Unclear Requirements
Another critical factor that causes job burnout is not having precise requirements related to your work, or if specifications keep changing on urgent notice, it can result into chronic stress. If you find yourself in the same position, you can talk to your manager and supervisor and discuss expectations and techniques for meeting them. It can help to get rid of stress for both of you.
3. Avoid Conflicts
Please stay away from the conflicts as they can impact your physical and emotional health. Everyone knows that fights between colleagues are hard to get away, so it’s always better to avoid such conflicts at work. Staying away from conflicts means don’t be the part of unnecessary gossips, don’t put in your opinion regarding religion and politics. Distant you from people who are not doing well with other co-workers. Unfortunately, if conflict reaches you, learn how to deal with conflict appropriately.
4. Be A Perfectionist
If you are an efficient worker and a high achiever, it can automatically make you feel good and outshine at work. In fast-paced jobs, you may not be able to perform all your duties perfectly, but still, you can strive for the best and then congratulate yourself for the effort, it’s an excellent strategy to motivate yourself. Your output will get better with time, and you will find yourself less stressed.
5. Organize Yourself
If you are a disorganized person, you cannot decrease stress at work. You need to plan things ahead to be organized. The first thing you should consider is to organize your time; it can help you to avoid rushing in the morning to be on time and rushing to go home at the end of the day. Keep yourself organized; it can help you against stress and anxiety at work and will make you more competent with your work.
6. Get Rid Of Bad Habits
Your own undoings can result into workplace anxiety-like working in an untidy environment, always looking for perfection, striving to control the uncontrollable factors. By controlling these habits, you can reduce overall anxiety levels. Always find good in your work instead of bad, and acknowledge the factors that are not in your control.
7. Get Sufficient Sleep
Stress can make you awake at night, and this lack of sleep leaves you more stressed. If you didn’t get enough sleep, you cannot perform well at the job, and it creates anxiety at work as well.
To avoid it try the following:
- Avoid coffee after 12 noon
- Avoid food which contains tryptophan, melatonin, and magnesium
- Try to sleep at the same hour each night
- Try to take two 15-minutes relaxation breaks in the day.
Let’s close this article on a famous saying of Roosevelt:
“Do what you can do, with what you have got, where you are.”
