April is national stress awareness month. We wanted to support that through our blog this week. Stress has many negative impacts on the human body, such as headaches, high blood pressure, skin conditions, anxiety, depression, and many more. These are just a few of a long list. Chronic stress can have impactful conditions that last a lifetime. It’s very important to know how to deal with stress properly to avoid chronic conditions caused from stress in your life. There are many reasons why stress can arise at work including low pay, work that’s not engaging, excessive overloads and overall lack of support to name a few. It’s crucial to understand ways to manage this properly.
1. Know your stressors: do you know what is stressing you out at work? How can you avoid these situations or change them? How did you respond? Try keeping a journal if you’re not sure to identify the underlying reasons.
2. Watch how you respond: now you know what is bothering you at work so how do you cope? Do you go have drinks and eat junk food or do you go burn off your frustrations at the gym? Healthy coping mechanisms are important. Going to the gym, yoga, read. Healthy body = healthy mind.
3. R&R: it’s important to get enough sleep at night in order to tackle your professional day. You have to also disconnect from your job somehow. May this be putting your phone on “do not disturb”, meditating, zoning out and watching some T.V. to not think about work here and there. Taking a hike and spending time with family outside of work can also help you get good recovery time to recharge your mind and body.
These are just a few ways to learn how to cope with stressors in your professional life. There are many more such as talking to your supervisor, setting work boundaries and finding support with family or even therapists. The happier and healthier you are, the better you will perform on the job. Not only this, you will increase the longevity of your mind, body and quality of life.
