Workplace stress is a serious issue. More importantly, high levels of worry in the workplace can have serious consequences on your quality of life - not only at the office, but everywhere else as well. Stress is responsible for over 75% of all doctor’s office visits and contributes to heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and autoimmune diseases. If you’re stressed out at work, and you take this home with you at the end of the day, it’s time to implement some measures that will help you STRESS LESS.
To effectively manage stress, you need to address it across three main areas of your life: your physical health, your mental health, and in relation to your sense of purpose. Here are some activities for you to consider if you need to stress less in your life.
The hyper-active habits of modern living activate high stress level responses in our bodies. We often don’t take the time to participate in creating the necessary amount of relaxation response to counterbalance such stress. This has serious consequences for our physical health - too much stress can accelerate the aging process, suppress our immune systems, and leave us feeling fatigued and depressed.
Since stress is actually a physical and hormonal chain reaction, the first place to start is using your body to positively interrupt the stress response. In fact, the foundation for living a stress-free, vibrant life lies in what we eat, how much (and how often) we move, as well as how much we sleep we get on a nightly basis. The following basic activities will provide a significant improvement in your stress levels, both at the office, and at home.
The stress response is a function of your autonomic nervous system’s flight-or-fight response. Specifically, stress is triggered by a thought or belief that you are in danger. Your body then goes into hyperdrive, producing cortisol and adrenaline to help you get out of danger as fast as possible.
Let’s repeat that for emphasis: Stress begins in your mind via a thought or belief. Thus, an important key to neutralising stress is to train your mind with more positive, happy, gratitude-filled thoughts in order to stop your stress response being triggered. A few simple ways to retrain your brain and tune it to a more positive, relaxed state of mind could include some of the following activites.
Connecting with your values in the workplace is the foundation for less stress and more happiness, both in the office and outside of it.
What do your values have to do with stress? When you are able to align your values with your work and live those values in all aspects of your life, then you are more at peace and less likely to feel stressed.
When your life is full of nothing but work and obligations, the potential for feeling bitter, resentful, depressed, and even angry creeps in. Some stress relieving tips to integrate your values into your worklife in a way that creates a more relaxing experience of life might include the following.
It's impossible to eliminate or escape stress at the workplace. It is a fact of modern life. However, you can take steps to neutralise stress in all areas of your life by filling your waking hours with meaningful actions, thoughts, and beliefs. Everyone deserves to live a happy, contented life. It’s never too late to start making yours exactly that.