After joining the workplace you must learn to manage stress. Usually, people are excited about getting into their first employment but there are many workplace challenges they must face including stress. Because of cut-throat competition, companies are under pressure to deliver quality goods and services to their clients and customers. This pressure is passed on to employees. Sometimes employees voluntarily work extra hours to prove themselves and stay ahead of others.
When you look at people at a traffic signal during morning office hours, they are busily commuting to the workplace. They are tense as they are in a hurry to reach the office on time. Most of them start the day with a to-do list. Again when you see them in the evening, after office hours at the signal, you find their faces still reflecting tension. They are carrying the pressures of work at home. A child smiles often but smiles less as he gets older because of stress.
In this regard, it would be very important to provide an example of a person who wears tight shoes and walks in pain. He does everything in the office with pain and pressure. After reaching home he removes his tight shoes and feels relieved. Although technology has brought a lot of comfort to mankind, it has also brought several challenges including stress.
Table of Contents
Types of stress
Stress is classified into three types: personal stress, work-related stress, and organizational stress.
- When stress arises due to personal reasons, it is known as personal stress. When it arises due to high expectations in the workplace, it is known as work-related stress. Personal stress is the most challenging one, arising out of health or family problems and commitments.
- Organizational stress arises due to organizational change, uncertainty, and complexity.
- Work-related stress often arises due to a lack of resources and the inability of employees to execute their tasks effectively. It arises due to demanding clients and customers, the inability to manage time effectively, when roles are not clearly defined and demarcated, leading to confusion, and due to setting unrealistic goals. Organizational stress arises due to the wrong policies of companies, sudden dismissals, or retrenchments.
Stress has both positive and negative effects. People must differentiate between healthy pressure and toxic stress as healthy pressure keeps you motivated while toxic stress can be a disaster. Usually, stress hurts individuals. In some cases however, it brings out the best in an individual and unlocks their hidden potential.
Stress and burnout
There is a difference between stress and burnout. Stress is the initial manageable symptom, while burnout is the final unmanageable one. Burnout is all about feeling a lack of motivation and emptiness. It is the extreme stage of stress where people don’t find any meaning in their lives. It saps energy, leaving people feeling increasingly helpless, hopeless, cynical, and resentful.
Finally, people may lose interest in life itself. If employees realize their stress in the initial stage, they can avoid getting burned out. At times, employees, especially those who have recently joined, don’t realize the difference between the two and end up being burned out. There are various stages of burnout—the
honeymoon stage, awakening stage, brownout stage, burnout stage, and finally recovery stage. When freshmen join the workplace, they enjoy their honeymoon period. After some time, they wake up to the realities of work pressures. Then they get into the brownout stage, where they are deep into the pressure of work. And then they get burned out with various health complications and develop mood swings, irritation, depression, and suicidal tendencies.
Finally, they undergo the recovery stage, and most come out of it successfully through medication and care. As prevention is better than cure, realizing
The symptoms of burnout in the initial stage itself help immensely prevent falling into the trap. The afflicted individuals must consult qualified health professionals if they have any concerns over stress-related illnesses or if stress is causing significant or persistent unhappiness. They must also consult health professionals before making any major changes to their diet or levels of exercise.
Causes of stress
There are innumerable causes of stress. Some people take on extra work because they need more money to support their family members. Some undertake extra pressure to compete with others and to grow rapidly in their career. At times, inefficiency may put employees in stressful situations. In this case, they must learn the ropes of work quickly to avoid stress. Workplace conflicts may also be a source of stress.
Demanding bosses may also be the cause of stress among employees. When employees don’t have promotion prospects within the company and can’t find alternative employment elsewhere, they work under stress. When people pursue the wrong careers due to financial needs, they get stressed out quickly.
In some cases, people may not know how to choose the right career, thus landing in the wrong workplace. Those who have family problems and divorced individuals may also develop stress levels. When people give too much importance to work, they get stressed out.
Effects of stress
Stress has more negative effects than positive ones. Excessive stress may lead to a nervous breakdown. It may lead to a heart attack or other diseases. The effects of stress are more on the mind than on the body. Therefore, it is essential to tackle stress to eliminate physical ailments.
Excessive stress leads to irregular bowls or frequent headaches, resulting in a lack of concentration and losing productivity and profitability. Affected individuals may eat more or lose their appetite.
They may also not get proper sleep. Individuals may become moody, developing fears and phobias that drain their mental energy. They may resort to various addiction and other vices, such as excessive alcoholism and smoking.
How to Ensure Your Work-Life Balance with Stress Management
The way to tame stress is mindfulness, believing in the present, not in the past or future. Britta Holzel of Harvard Medical School, along with other authors identified four key components of mindfulness that help deal with stress. They are attention regulation, body awareness, emotion regulation, and sense of self. Here are the tips, tools, and techniques to bust your stress:
- Hit the gym regularly to maintain physical fitness. If it is not possible, go for regular walks or jogging as it keeps you fit physically. Remember to invest one hour every day in your physical exercises as it not only beats stress but gives you more energy to sustain and fight the challenges. You can also go swimming which is the best exercise. You can also do yoga and meditation.
- Solitude is fortitude. Go to a serene place and sit quietly. Don’t allow any thoughts to enter your mind. Suspend your thoughts and bring your mind to peace and tranquility. You enjoy the power of silence and freshen your mental energy.
- Take vegetarian food preferably. Have frequent meals but take in limited quantities as your body gets energized and activated.
- Separate your personal, professional, and social life. Don’t carry office pressures home and vice versa.
- Don’t worry about your unpleasant past, which cannot be changed, and don’t worry about the uncertain future. Learn to live in the present. Studies show that people waste 30 percent of their time brooding about their unpleasant past. Hence, say ‘No’ to your unpleasant past and uncertain future, and say ‘Yes’ to your present.
- Enjoy your journey towards your destination rather than think about enjoying it after reaching your destination because you have only one life to enjoy. Learn to balance both pressure and pleasure.
- Avoid associating with negative people who often criticize, complain, and condemn others. Such people poison your mind and divert you from your goals.
- Maintain regular sleeping hours. Don’t sleep more than eight hours.
- Have regular biological needs, and stabilizes and balances your mind.
- Listen to music as it relieves you from work pressures.
- Play with children as you get great joy by associating and spending time with them. The innocent smile of children makes you forget your worries and tensions.
- Don’t strive for perfection. Strive for excellence. When you strive for perfection you get stressed as perfection is not feasible. Try to deliver your best.
- Things often don’t happen the way you plan. Hence, keep multiple alternative plans ready to bail you out and prevent you from getting stressed out.
- Don’t overstretch. Stretch up to the limits of your tolerance only.
- Maintain a diary and schedule a to-do list to avoid hassles. Remember, a short pencil is always better than a long memory.
- Delegate your work. Delegation is the art of passing on routine tasks to your subordinates, enabling them to become competent employees. It reduces your work pressure and also saves you precious time. You can utilize the time saved for other roles and responsibilities.
- Be assertive in the workplace. Don’t take an excessive workload that is not meant for you. Assertiveness is the art of saying ‘No’ politely but firmly. If you are aggressive, you cannot make friends in the workplace. In contrast, if you are submissive, people will exploit you by giving you extra work. Therefore, accept the work that you are supposed to do and try to be assertive from day one, to send firm signals to others.
- Manage your time well. Learn to prioritize the tasks. Follow the concept of ABCDE of time management where A stands for the tasks that are important and urgent, B stands for the tasks that are important but not urgent, C stands for the tasks that are neither important nor urgent but need your attention, D stands for delegating the routine tasks to your subordinates and E stands for the elimination of unwanted activities. Effective time management minimizes your stress levels.
- Pursue hobbies and passions other than your work. Hobbies unwind your creativity providing you joy and happiness. Having one or two hobbies is essential to provide meaning to your life as money and success are not everything. When you look at modern management guru, Peter Drucker, he led his life completely by pursuing the hobbies that were close to his heart.
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Pursue parallel careers
Peter Drucker believed in the concept of parallel careers. He said, “We will have to learn to develop second careers for accomplished professional and managerial people when they reach their late forties or so.” A parallel career does not mean you don’t enjoy your life. A parallel career does not mean you neglect your career. It is a career that is close to your heart and also helps you generate income to lead a financially stable life.
Peter Drucker pursued his passions, such as writing, consulting, and teaching, as well as hobbies such as mountain hiking and swimming. He balanced everything in his life—work, hobbies, and passions. He led his life completely without having any regrets in the end.
Parallel careers help to sustain you in case you lose your regular employment. At times it may catapult you as an entrepreneur. It helps you unlock your hidden potential, manage your time and stay focused. Parallel careers include teaching, training, writing, authoring books, providing consultancy in your area of expertise, and delivering speeches in your area of interest.
Computer vision syndrome (CVS)
These days CVS has become a common problem and a very big challenge for employees as they have to work long hours in front of computers. Due to the sedentary working conditions, employees have developed several work-related stresses. Employees develop several health hazards due to CVS such as dry eyes, irritation in the eyes, poor vision, and a decline in eye blinking rate. The study reveals that the blinking rate decreases by 70 percent when people work in front of computers for a long duration. Here are the ways to tackle this challenge:
Keep the computer monitor away at a distance of 20 to 26 inches and keep it at your level neither too high nor too low position. Drink water frequently. Take frequent breaks and walk around. Look at distant objects and do eye exercises by rotating your eyeballs clockwise and then anti-clockwise. You can also rotate your eyes diagonally up and down as it strengthens your eye muscles. Consult an eye specialist periodically and use eye drops regularly to lubricate your eyes.
Realizing that workplace stress has become a snowballing menace for businesses and employees some companies have taken various initiatives to tackle it. They provide separate restrooms for employees to do meditation during working hours. They also conduct regular workshops on managing stress. Such initiatives enhance the productivity and profitability of companies.
Final thoughts
It is ironic that people earn a lot of money and then spend most of it on stress-related diseases. They must learn to strike a balance between pressure and pleasure. They must be able to balance their personal, professional, and social life. Some people spend their entire lives making money without searching for any meaning in life. To conclude, there are three symptoms of good health—sound sleep, exercise, and good appetite. As long as you enjoy these you enjoy good health and you can keep stress at bay and lead a happy and great life.
References
- Social work, stress and burnout: A review. by CHRIS LLOYD , ROBERT KING & LESLEY CHENOWETH (1IMHS, Gold Coast Hospital, Department of Occupational Therapy, Southport, 2Department of Psychiatry & 3School of Social Work and Social Policy, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia)
- Types of Stress and Their Symptoms | By: Will Joel Friedman, Ph.D.
- Causes of Stress Written by Stephanie Watson
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