Almost every type of job can or will cause stress in the everyday life. Meeting deadlines, long hours, and dealing with clients and your boss can make you feel overwhelmed with it all. Sometimes stress is good for your job performance, as it will make you get better at anything but when it is toxic stress that will leave you feeling drained, that is not a good thing.
The important thing in professional life is that you don’t have to take things personally and not think about work after you finish your shift. 8 – 10 hours per day (based on your work schedule) are more than enough to put pressure on yourself. However, maintaining calm is a possibility even during your work hours. Here are several tips on how to reduce stress in the office:
Lean on your friends or co-workers
Using the lunch break to open up with a friend will always help. You could talk to them about everything that is stressing you out such as problems with sleeping, eating habits, and daily routines or that you are struggling to plan and calculate the due date for your unborn baby, or with managing your time spent with family and at work. When we are stressed, it is better if we let it out because it is something that our body doesn’t need. So talking it out with a friend might help you blow off some steam. If you created a trust bond with your co-workers, that might be even better. Not because your friend wouldn’t understand, but having co-workers experiencing the same thing can help reduce stress at all because you will feel heard and relatable.
Use breathing techniques
When we can’t control things, that is when stress appears. And when we are feeling stressed, we feel powerless. You cannot control someone’s tone or macro forces, but you can control how you choose to react. And when that is hard to even think about, before making any decisions it is better if you use breathing techniques. It is important you lay on something comfortable. Having a break room with rubber lock tiles would be really comfortable for employees to use when they need to pray or meditate. Breathe in through your nose and let it out with your mouth open. Put the left hand in your belly and the right hand in your heart and just feel your breathing. That will help you relax and you will be able to make reasonable decisions.
Check your diet
What you eat in a day, really affects your mood. Taking a coffee first thing in the morning might increase anxiety. That is why you will always have to eat something healthy before you drink coffee. Sugar, processed carbohydrates, and things you are not eating can contribute to stress. A registered dietitian Kaleigh McMordie agrees “Mood is regulated by the brain, and to work properly, the brain needs optimal fuel from nutrients in food”. So, try to add colorful fruits and vegetables, fatty fish, and basically nutrient-rich foods.
Organize and prioritize
Waking up late and rushing to go to work, might increase stress and that will continue for the rest of the day. It is really important how you start the day after you wake up. Creating healthy habits before going to work such as; a walk in the morning, going to your favorite coffee shop, meditating, reading a book, etc. Going 15 minutes earlier at work can make a difference. Organize your routine by creating healthy habits first thing in the morning. And when you do that, you will have the time to prioritize the important tasks. For example, if you are a hiring manager, you usually have to manage many things simultaneously, such as clients, and existing staff or you are sometimes responsible for employment. For the latter, you have to think about how much visible is that job position to the interested people, than management of interviews, applicant tracking, and recruitment analytics. Applicant tracking systems save your time for other tasks that are more demanding at the workplace Start with unpleasant tasks always, you will get over them faster and you wouldn’t have to think about them for the rest of the day. Applicant Tracking System
Conclusion
When we feel stressed at work, we create a negative cycle by working extra hours, not eating and not hydrating, avoiding social life, and just being angry all the time. It is as if we punish ourselves for not doing a good job and we never feel enough. That will interfere with our work performance and your body will scream for a time-out. Many ways will help you manage stress in your work life; breathing techniques, having a break room specially designed for employees to relax, having healthy conversations with your friends and co-workers, etc. Creating healthy boundaries and habit routines can change your whole life, not just your work life.
