Archive for effects of stress
Tips to Get Control of Stress in the Workplace
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Everyone would agree that one of the sources of stress is your workplace. The seemingly impossible task assigned to you, noisy workmates, the pollution in and out of the office, as well as your state of mind can easily lead you to the throes of stress if you aren’t careful.
Now what if your employer wants you to each lunch in the lunch room? You may have extra challenges if you are high strung. I found it impossible to get a moment of rest in the lunchroom, people wanted to talk to me and I was obliged to smile and listen to what they were saying. I wasn’t really much of a lunch eater anyway, I found the best solution was to take my lunch how I wanted, get some quiet, but then spend 10 minutes in the lunchroom talking, smiling and greeting everyone. I was “on” at the time, refreshed, and ready to listen.
If you don’t take some time off from your busy schedule to address the problem, then stress will just keep piling up on you until such time that it will affect your work — which could prove to be a problem for your career or business. There are adjustments you can make at work.
If you are a manager it’s critical you be aware of stress in the managers under you. Make sure they are practicing good habits. If they are new managers you ESPECIALLY need to make sure they are starting good habits that won’t burn them out. As a manager it’s just as important for you to manage your stress as it is for you to help other manage theirs.
It is very important for a workaholic or a busy-body to integrate proper stress management program into their daily routine to ensure that both their mind and body is up to the task of addressing the demand of work. If it’s your first time to try this out on yourself, then here are some tips that will help you get started.
One Small Step At A Time
It is impossible to remove all your stress with just one flick of a wrist, and we can safely say that your mind is not equipped or prepared to handle the effort of getting rid of your problems in one go.
If you are planning to apply stress management in your career then you need to keep in mind to take it slow. Don’t rush the process of self-improvement if you want to benefit from it. Start first by determining the source of your stress and note them down so you can take care of it one-by-one.
Instead of ranting and raving on your fellow workmates due to your problems, or snapping at someone you don’t mean to, you might want to take a short break from your task and take some time off to relax a little bit. Get some fresh air or make yourself some coffee to help you calm down.
Know Your Limits
If you think that you can do anything in one sitting, then you might want to reconsider this if you want to properly implement your stress management program. Keep in mind that our body has it own limits, even if our mind can cope with the demands.
You need to realize that your mind is linked with your body and both can break down if you’re not careful. If you think that you are getting stressed with work then its fine time to take a break and relax. Do some easy breathing exercises to help you calm down or you can try out a simple meditation trick to push worrisome thoughts out of your mind to improve your focus.
Pamper Yourself Once In A While
We can safely say that a workaholic or a busy-body will not have any free time to indulge in pampering as a stress-relief. If you are one of them then you better rethink your options if you don’t want your body to break down on you.
You might want to start pampering yourself once in a while to help you relax when the demands of work are starting to take its toll on you. Start your pampering session by getting a massage to help loosen those tight muscles that causes aches and pains to appear in different parts of your body. Feel free to enjoy the services of a health and fitness spa near you to make your career more bearable.
Stress Management for Self Improvement
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Stress has always been a part of our daily lives. We often find ways to deal it with but can become unbearable when you’re tightly under its grip. The important part here is to take control of stress before it ends up controlling you — which is to say that you will be making a lot of mistakes that will take quite a lot of time and effort to fix. This is where stress management comes in.
Why Get Rid Of Stress
We can never deny the fact that stress can be a big hindrance in everything you plan to do with your life. It can get in the way of business, career, or even with your family and friends. If you give in to the irritation and anger that is often the result of stress, you are bound to make wrong decisions and plenty of mistakes that will bring you down.
You can lose your job, do badly in a business deal, or even make enemies left and right when you let your stress control you. Learn to control stress and get rid of it every time it crops up for self-improvement.
Find The Source Of Your Stress
Knowing the source of your stress gives you plenty of options to counter it. If your stress stems from overwork, then take some time off from your busy schedule to relax. The home can also become a stressful environment, especially when it’s disorganized. If you think that the design of the interior is giving you problems, then take some time to rearrange the furniture around or add some home décor to make it comfortable to look at. Once you are able to determine the problem then you can take the necessary steps to correct it.
Learn To Relax Once In A While
Everyone would agree that work, or the demands of work, is mostly the cause of stress. If you think that you have that wild look in your eyes every time your boss asks you to do something, then you better ask for a vacation leave to relax yourself outside your work area before it leads you into trouble.
Take some time off from your busy schedule and visit the local spa. Pamper yourself by indulging in a full-body massage or get an aromatherapy session going on to help you relax. You can always take a vacation if you really want to get the thoughts of work out of your system, but a massage will do just fine if you can’t afford to be absent from it.
Find The Child Within You
Kids are known to be stress-free. Even if you scold them or force them to eat vegetables, you will never see them suffer from stress. The reason here is with their mindset to enjoy life as they see fit. You can take your cue from them and enjoy life more.
Find your inner child and just play. You can grab your Playstation out of the cabinet and bring out the games you usually play during your free time. Another idea is to listen to your favorite music or read some comics on the Internet. You can even play online games if you like just to get your mind off your work.
Keep in mind that the gist of stress management is not the methods you take for getting stress out of your system. The idea here is to learn how to divert your mind from the problems that causes stress to give yourself time to relax and face the problem with a clear mind.
Avoid Mistakes
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Wrong decisions and impromptu choices are always the result of stress. If your mind has gone berserk with a problem, then you can be sure that you will be making mistakes left and right without even knowing it. You can compromise your career, destroy a business, or even hurt those you love with your actions. If you want to avoid making mistakes then you better learn stress management before its too late.
Start To Control Your Stress
The best way to control stress is to have a calm and focused mind. You don’t need special skills or superhuman abilities to cope with stress — you only need your mind for that. A great way to achieve this is to know the cause of your stress and list them down so that you can tackle it one-by-one. It is not advisable to look at all your problems in one sitting since that will only lead to confusion, and eventually, more stress for you.
Start Your Learning Experience
There are plenty of ways to learn stress management. You can learn it through the experience and advice from experts or those who have already mastered the skill, or you can buy reading materials from the local bookstore. Keep in mind that there are different techniques to use for coping with stress and you need to find one that will work for you.
Another way is to download the materials necessary from the Web. You can even ask the experts in forums regarding their method of dealing with stress from work, friends, family, love life, and the likes. You can note them down and try them out later on to find out whether they work for you or not.
Some Stress Management Ideas
If it’s your first time to try out stress management then it would be safe to say that you wouldn’t know where to begin. You can read tons of materials on it but it will still take some time for you to master the basics. If you are in need of immediate stress relief, then here are some ideas that will surely help you out in your time of need.
1. Get A Massage — Pampering yourself is one way to cope with stress. You can visit your local health spa and indulge yourself in one of their traditional massage styles to loosen those knotted muscles and relax while experts are working their magic on you. Shiatsu is considered to be the best choice for a relaxation massage, followed closely by Swedish.
2. Aromatherapy — There are certain scents from plant extracts that can greatly affect our mood. Have your stomach ever grumbled when you smell something delectable? This is the same thing with aromatherapy and stress. You can enjoy an aromatherapy session along with your massage or you can buy some incense or oils from the nearby health shops and use them on your home or while in the office. Also, the smell will also have some effect on those around you for a calmer atmosphere.
3. Listen To Music — A common adage says that music can soothe the savage beast and stress is definitely a wild beast inside you waiting for the right moment to pounce. You can try to listen to your favorite music to help you relax and get back your lost rhythm. This is practically the most common method for coping with stress and it will surely work for you if you give it a try.
Stress Management 101
Posted by: | CommentsI am going to do a series of articles on stress because stress can have an enormous impact on health, productivity, happiness, and everything to do with managing.
Now I can’t say I was always the perfect example but in almost 20 years I rarely got sick and managed to stay a size 4 or 6. I didn’t exercise everyday but I did it a few times a week and I ate whatever I wanted…….. Okay, within reason. More on that to come.
Also, the impact on our personal lives is HUGE!
So this will be a series of subjects relating to stress. Be sure to submit your comment by clicking on “comments”, or even emailing me or filling out the contact form to let me know any concerns, topics, stories, etc.
Stress Management 101: Learn To Take Care Of Yourself
Stress can really harm our body’s normal function; especially if we don’t pay attention to the warning signs. Often even when we deny the sensations we are feeling on our bodies, we can surely feel that our physical and mental state is in an alarm state. It’s very important for an individual to learn to watch out for the warning signs that stress is already taking control of your system. You need to learn the ways to take care of your body to avoid a total breakdown.
I know first hand this sounds like common sense but often people dealing with overwhelming stress often don’t know what to do to get out of it. Not managing stress can lead to a series of diseases and destructive behaviour.
Look Out For The Danger Signs
Stress often starts out in our minds before it starts to show some signs on our bodies. Keep in mind that both are connected and one will show some effects of the other. A stress-free mind is often linked to an active and healthy body, but a mind riddled with problems will surely result to a deteriorating health.
It is very important for a person to watch out for danger signs your body is nearing the limits of its tolerance to stress. Often times, we will feel some minor aches and pains in various parts of our body when your mind is getting burdened with all the stress and problems it is subjected to. If left unchecked, it might result to sleeping and behavioral problems, lack of breath, or even a potential heart attack when it is already above the danger level.
Mentally Cope With Stress
The mind shows the first signs of stress and will later reveal itself to your emotional and physical state when left unchecked. It is extremely important that we learn how to calm our minds when under the throes of stress and learn to focus our thoughts in order to push the problems further back in our minds and learn to relax when you need to.
This might take some effort if it’s your first time trying to manage your stress. But there are some techniques you can use to simplify the process and help you learn it bit by bit. You can start by listening to your favorite music to help focus your thoughts. Try singing along with the lyrics or hum the tune to yourself to divert your attention away from your problems.
Breathing Exercise
Another method is to focus on your breathing. You can start some exercises which involves breathing in and out in specific intervals. This might take some getting used to on your first try but you will be able to focus on your breathing immediately after some practice.
Also, this exercise will ensure that your body, as well as your mind will get enough oxygen for it to function properly. We usually hyper-ventilate or suffer short breathing when stressed so it’s best to practice some breathing exercise to help you cope with it.
Eat The Right Food To Fight Stress
You need to take care of what we eat if you plan to fight stress head-on. It is essential that our body gets enough nutrients for it to function properly and avoid a breakdown when our mind is getting bombarded with problems. The bad thing is this is often where people go off the tracks.
All of this is easier said than done of course, often when people are under extreme stress they reach for food to make themselves feel better. For me that usually meant chocolate……. Almost every manager that’s worked for me would list chocolate as my main food group, but it wasn’t. I ate it in moderation most of the time.
Avoid eating foods that are high in cholesterol and try to focus more on integrating a healthy lifestyle of fruits and vegetables. You might not know it, but healthy foods can also help you in dealing with stress. After all, if you’re not burdened with body pains then you can focus more in helping your mind cope with it. Mix healthy foods with something that comforts you (that is my opinion really), I was always working long days so when I did cook it needed to be simple.
One of my favorite dinners when I was stressed was a healthy salad, baked salmon and penne noodles with my “special” fettucine sauce. I know purists will disagree with me on this but I think butter is a natural ingredient, so I use real butter because I prefer eating natural ingredients over others. So I would saute a little garlic, then add it to another pan. In the other pan I would melt half a stick of butter, add some non-fat milk, basil, oregano, dash of pepper, and fresh shredded parmesan (okay, I buy my parmesan PRE shredded, but hey, I was busy!). I would put a half the sauce on my noodles, put the salmon fillet on the noodles and pour the rest of my sauce on the top. This meal would satisfy me AND my soul!!!
There is more to come with this article series.
