Stress at work is unavoidable. Use these ten tactics to ease the stress and love your work again!
The following article is a guest post by Raymond Chiu. Raymond is the Director of Operations for Maid Sailors Commercial Cleaning Service New York.
Stress at work is often unavoidable. But despite it being a challenge, it’s part of life that makes us stronger and helps improve our character.
Nonetheless, we don’t want to overexpose ourselves to stress. It can have many harmful effects.
One of the most significant sources of stress for a lot of people is their job. If you don’t have stress at work or haven’t ever felt pressure from your job, you’re part of a select few. You might fall under the category of a unicorn with this.
On the other hand, if you’re starting to feel stress is creeping up on you, read on. These ten tactics will help you reduce the onset of stress at work.
1. Start Your Day Right
Your morning routine affects the rest of your day more than you might think. Rushing in the morning can increase your stress.
It’s best if you can find ways to start your day right.
Luckily there are several ways to do just that.
This includes eating a healthy breakfast, planning your day intentionally, and doing some exercise:
- Eat a healthy breakfast. Eat a healthy breakfast that won’t make you feel too full or sluggish. Choose nourishing food that won’t weigh you down or give you a sugar crash.
- Plan your day. Plan your day before it starts so you don’t end up rushing around to address things at the last minute.
- Exercise. Exercise helps get your body moving and your blood flowing. It will give you the energy to start the day.
Starting your day in a positive way sets a great tone for the rest of the day. And you’ll be better prepared to handle potentially stressful situations.
2. Build Positive Relationships
Building positive work relationships is a great way to reduce your stress at work.
The key to building positive relationships is to develop empathy with the people you work with. It can help you improve your business results if you have a great sense of compassion.
Whether you’re a leader in the workplace or part of a team, treat everyone with the same level of kindness and respect. You shouldn’t only be helpful to people just because they’re your supervisor.
Compassion is a skill that can be challenging to learn. But you can apply it to all of your business relationships. Coworkers, bosses, and clients are all worthy of your empathy and understanding.
Once people sense you’re a positive person to be with, they’ll reciprocate kindness to you. This can make your workplace a more positive and stress-free place to work.
DO THIS: Simply be kind to others. Don’t gossip. Don’t say things you would be ashamed for others to hear about later. Choose your words intentionally and be supportive and kind.
3. Practice Mindfulness
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Practicing mindfulness exercises is a great way to actively reduce stress.
Mindfulness helps you have more inner peace, and it provides a sense of harmony and clarity in your everyday life.
One of its main goals is to reduce your stress through meditation.
If you find yourself starting to feel overwhelmed and stressed, try using mediation or other mindfulness exercises.
DO THIS: Some easy things you can do are journaling, deep breathing exercises to calm you, or simply taking note of everything around you to be fully in the moment.
Mindfulness helps you have more inner peace, and it provides a sense of harmony and clarity in your everyday life.
4. Connect With Other People
Don’t be afraid to connect with coworkers when you feel your stress levels rise. They might be able to help you, and they can be a companion for work.
You should also not be afraid to reach out to friends and family to help you unload from the stress.
Connecting with other people will help you reduce stress levels. At the same time, it reminds you of the emotional support that you have around you.
DO THIS: Identify people in your workplace and in your life who can be a positive and supportive network. Try not to wait until you’re in a stressful situation. Reach out and nurture those relationships proactively.
5. Stay Organized
Photo by Melvin Thambi on Unsplash
There are a lot of distinct sources of stress for people, but there are also ones that are a less obvious. One of the more prominent sources of stress is the state of the environment around you.
At Maid Sailors Commercial Cleaning Service, we believe a messy working environment can make it challenging for you to focus on your work. It can increase your stress if you don’t keep your space organized.
For example, it can be stressful if you need specific documents for work, but a disorganized workspace makes it hard for you to find them. Instead, make sure you keep everything where they should be.
The organization doesn’t only apply to your physical work desk. Do the same for your digital files. Organize your work documents and keep your desktop clean.
DO THIS: Identify people in your workplace and in your life who can be a positive and supportive network. Try not to wait until you’re in a stressful situation. Reach out and nurture those relationships proactively.
6. Take a Break
Taking a break should be a part of your work routine, no matter what. Your brain can’t function on work for hours upon hours straight without repercussions.
Even when you’re working from home, you still need to remind yourself to step away from your work for a bit and take a break.
DO THIS: Step away from your work several times a day for a short break. You might have lunch with friends or go for a walk. If you’re working from home, go hug your kids if they’re around. Even if you simply step outside for fresh air, it will help you reset and keep stress levels low.
7. Have a Healthy Diet and Squeeze in Exercise
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You are what you eat, as the saying goes. Therefore, you should be more conscious of what you eat during the day. It can affect your stress levels.
Aside from that, make sure that you get enough exercise. Your mind can affect your body, but the opposite is also true. Exercise has been shown to help you better manage stress, along with many other positive benefits.
DO THIS: Be intentional about what you eat. Plan ahead and choose foods that make you feel better both physically and mentally. And work in movement of some sort into your day.
8. Learn to Say “No”
You might want to say yes to everything your work throws at you to prove yourself. However, too much, and you’ll end up overworked and committed to too many things.
Learning to say no in the right situations will ensure that you don’t feel like you’re stretched thin and have no time for yourself.
DO THIS: Before saying yes to more work, think about your current workload and assess whether you can realistically take it on. You may need to say “no” to something else to say “yes” to more work. Have an honest conversation about the impacts and necessary trade offs.
Read this: When and How to Say No to a Project
9. Schedule Quality Social Time
Your work relationships shouldn’t be the only things that block out your time. Make sure you’re getting enough quality social time with friends and family.
You need to be deliberate in connecting with the people you love. Make sure that you check up on everyone so they can see how you’re doing as well.
DO THIS: Schedule time with friends. Follow through. Simple as that.
Be deliberate in connecting with the people you love.
10. Set Your Boundaries
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When working from home, it’s much more challenging to set boundaries. There’s no physical movement from an office building to home.
So it’s crucial for your sanity that you set boundaries for work.
And even if you’re not working from home, you still need to set boundaries.
It can be stressful to feel like you never leave work. You never get a mental break to recharge or experience a separate personal life. You need to know that when you’re off work, you’re able to be fully present in your personal life.
Don’t answer work calls or queries outside of dedicated time for them. Don’t make yourself available 24/7, or you’re going to exhaust yourself. If so, you’ll find the stress at work can spill over to other areas of your life.
DO THIS: DO THIS: Put your work phone and work computer away after you leave work. If necessary, have a conversation with your peers and boss about answering calls and emails after hours. This ensures everyone has the same expectation about when you’re available.
Summary – Reducing Stress at Work
Stress may be inevitable, but it doesn’t mean you have to sit and endure it until it goes away.
There are plenty of direct and indirect ways to alleviate stress. The ten ways listed above are a small sample of stress-relieving activities you can do.
Find your personal favorite and expand your stress management tools.
The key is to be proactive with your stress management approaches.
More Steps to Ease Stress at Work
If you want to get a different perspective on how stress and challenges can help you grow, read my book review of The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday.
You’ll learn new ways to look at look at challenging situations. You might even welcome them as opportunities! Learn how to embrace challenges to grow professionally here: Book Review: The Obstacle is the Way – Lessons for Success
Bonus Tip:
The article presenting a simple trick to crush presentation nerves shows you exactly how to shift your thinking to change the way you perceive a situation.
This in turn can change how you feel about any stressful situation.
It doesn’t only work for presentations.
It can be used in any situation and massively impact how you handle stress. Read the simple steps and change how you approach stressful situations forever:
