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Reduce Stress

Coping with Stress

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When your job involves managing projects, planning events, and meeting impossible deadlines, you are under some degree of stress every day. Because of your success, others may not be aware of how stress is affecting you. However, stress may be evident in your home life, your job at the office, and your relationships with others. In this article, you will find ten ways to reduce stress tips.

What Is Stress and What Are the Symptoms?

When you’re under a lot of pressure and things become unmanageable, your body releases the hormones cortisol and adrenaline to protect you and keep you safe. Stress will manifest as a physical response of fight or flight, rescuing you from a potentially dangerous situation. You might start to shake, sweat, breathe heavily, or have trouble breathing. Other stress symptoms include irritability, lack of concentration, insomnia, high blood pressure, heart problems, and physical and mental fatigue.

Recognizing When Stress Becomes Debilitating

Dealing with individuals with diverse backgrounds, completing complex assignments, and managing social expectations can make the workplace stressful for anyone. When the effects of stress are overwhelming, you can feel as if you can no longer cope or handle life’s pressures. Unaddressed compounded stress can keep you from functioning in your daily life, including the workplace.

Effects of Stress in the Workplace

When you experience anxiety at work, you might go to great lengths to hide your fears from others. It doesn’t matter if you’re in management or have a highly visible job assignment. You may give excuses for not attending office parties when the fact is that you become too anxious when around others socially. Stress can also cause you to refuse to travel for training opportunities, work on group projects, or accept a more responsible position.

Ways to Deal With Debilitating Stress

Experts suggest several ways to reduce stress activities and deal with debilitating stress.

1. Learn About Your Body

Understanding how your body reacts when you’re stressed can help you manage your anxiety. You will be able to recognize when you’re about to have a panic attack and take action to care for yourself.

2. Practice Good Time Management

Set mini-deadlines for yourself to be sure that you can complete the overall project on time.

3. Talk With a Trusted Friend

Knowing that someone cares about you, who won’t judge you but supports you unconditionally, can help reduce your work anxiety.

4. Stay Away From Toxic People

Toxic people can steal your time. Every workplace has its share of toxic employees who make it their duty to gossip and spread negativity in the workplace.

5. Expect the Unexpected

Whether you call it Murphy’s law or bad luck, things will happen that will compete with the time you are scheduled to work on an important project. Because you anticipated the unexpected, these things won’t derail your ability to complete the project.

6. Prioritize Your Assignments

Don’t be afraid to discuss conflicts with your superior: that you have more than one project with a deadline approaching, for example. Find out which one has the most priority, so you can put your efforts into completing that one first.

7. Learn to Set Boundaries

If all you do is focus on work and never recharge, you will quickly burn out. During your off time, don’t answer work emails or spend time working at home when you can be enjoying time with your family.

8. Take Care of Yourself

Maintaining good eating habits, exercising, and getting enough sleep are things you can do to stay in good health. When your body is healthy, it has a positive effect on your mind.

9. Seek Professional Help

Your health care professional can prescribe medication to help with anxiety, recommend therapy, or a combination of both. The American Disability Act protects employees who have a physical or mental disability from discrimination in the workplace.

10. Develop a Stress-Enhancing Mindset

According to a study conducted by researchers at Tel Aviv University, some people see stress as an enhancement. They believe it facilitates their ability to learn and grow, perform better, and be more productive. Therefore, stress has a positive rather than negative effect on their health and vitality, and they thrive on it.

The impact of stress in your life depends upon your perception. The choice is up to you. You can see stress as debilitating or use it as a motivator to work at a high-performance level. Changing your mindset and practicing other stress-reducing activities will help keep the effects of stress from becoming debilitating.

Contact me today for more information on how to cope with debilitating stress.