Everybody who has ever had a job has, sooner or later, felt the weight of work-related stress. Any activity can have unpleasant components, regardless of whether you adore what you do. For the time being, you may experience strain to comply with a time constraint or to satisfy a difficult commitment. But if this continues, it tends to overwhelm which is harmful for both physical and emotional health.
Stress is one of the most affecting aspects of emotional behaviour on the work front. Research shows that stress costs U.S. organizations an expected $300 billion every year, and the working environment has been recognized as the main source of stress for Americans.
Outstanding tasks at hand, absence of employer stability, and workforce issues pick on and overwhelm workers, hauling down their satisfaction levels. Considering the negative outcomes from stress, it has been announced a World-Wide Epidemic by the World Health Organization. This is a huge thing in itself and we just cannot ignore it like any other petty thing.
What happens when we keep “burning the candle on both ends” until we arrive at physical and mental fatigue? Much the same as the candle, we consume ourselves.
The physical, psychological and social effects of chronic stress
There are two kinds of stress: one is the “good stress” and the other is the “bad stress”. Good stress helps us achieve our long-term goals in life, if we sit back and do nothing will we be able to achieve what we desire? NO. Here is when the good stress comes into play. It motivates us to do what is required. It helps us achieve those milestones in our life which makes us closer to our goals. So, we should be able to distinguish between good stress and bad stress. How will you do so? There are symptoms and physical responses that indicates that you are stressed, and it is not a good one.
Let’s look at the physical responses first:
- Your muscles tense up
- Your digestive system becomes upset
- Your heart pumps faster than usual
- Our psychological handling quickly improves so we can think quicker
Stress if not handled properly can convert into chronic stress which can cause life threatening conditions:
- High blood pressure
- Cardiac problems
- Proneness to illness and chronic infections
- Gastrointestinal problems
- Proneness to diabetes
- Proneness to cancer
Symptoms of stress:
We all have experienced stress at some point in our lives and we know a few symptoms too:
- Insomnia
- Anxiety
- Severe headaches with nausea
- Stomach pain
- OCD
- Panic attacks
- Loss of concentration
- Sweaty hands or feet
- And Fatigue
Tips to handle stress at work:
Before we know how to handle the stress, we should understand our stress first. What causes it, how do we feel stressed, what happens when we stressed out. All these questions matter. If we don’t understand our stress how would we be able to handle it? Makes sense? Yes, it does. To understand stress, you need to first identify the source. What is causing you stress? Secondly, you need to understand the stress signals your body is giving. If you neglect these red alerts, then you can drown in stress and will eventually end up hurting your wellbeing.
Now, let’s see how we can handle the stress at work:
- Be Clear on Requirements
A factor that adds to work stress is fuzzy prerequisites. If you don’t know precisely what you are expected to do or if the requirements continue to change, you may get yourself substantially more worried than should be expected. If you think that the constant change in requirements will never stop then you need to go to your supervisor and discuss this. You don’t want yourself to end up falling into the snare of not knowing what to do and whether what you’re doing is right. This can alleviate your stress and your supervisor would know that you’re trying to make it work.
- Form Positive Relationships
While the negative impacts of stress are genuine, a significant part of the stress we experience can be reduced basically by discussing it.
That is the reason positive connections at work are so significant. Regardless of whether they can or can’t tackle your issues, sharing your source of stress with them can help you shed your burden. You will feel more relaxed and this can recharge you to continue with your work. According to a research, people who have friends at work are tend to be seven times more likely to be engaged in their duties.
- Prioritize and organize
Whenever employment and work environment stress take steps to overpower you, follow these steps to recover:
First of all, your work management policy should be prioritized and organized. If you are organized at work, stress is less likely to hit you.
- Make a balanced schedule
- Allocate strict deadlines for important tasks
- Plan breaks accordingly
- Assign realistic requirements
- Try not to over-commit yourself
If you plan your work accordingly then even if you’re given some extra work, you’d be able to cope with it.In this way, you can also plan to enrol yourself in an online bootcamp program to earn some extra expertise in your domain.
- Exercise Programs
In the majority, we’ll find that exercise is not a very preferred activity to do at work, however nobody can discredit the way it releases the work place stress. Exercise is said to be one of the most effective stress busters. When we work out, our body produces endorphins; substances in our mind that go about as feel-good neurotransmitters. These endorphins work like morphine because they also trigger a positive inclination in the body and diminish our agony.
You’ll additionally find that exercise enables workers to disregard their work environment worries as they’re too engaged in working out. We can also see celebrities encouraging a healthier lifestyle by engaging in regular work-out sessions, this has also created a solid ground for exercise programs. People are more inclined to exercise and if they find out that they have a gym at their workplace, they’d be happier than ever.
- Take time to recharge:
To keep away from the negative impacts of chronic stress, we need time to refresh and come back to our normal stress-free condition so be able to resume the work. You need to take regular breaks so that you can “switch-off” your work brain. After all, we are human beings and we cannot continue to work relentlessly by compromising our health.
By taking breaks doesn’t mean that you should only focus on de-stressing and leave your work on its own. You should know how to manage your work accordingly so it doesn’t affect your work as well as your health.
Vacations are also a way to release your workplace stress. You can go on a holiday every six months to rejuvenate your senses.
In this article, we have discussed the physical responses and symptoms for stress at work and how we can improve stress handling. Make sure to not give in to stress at any cost. Fight against it and Stay strong!
