How To Relieve Stress At Work

Stress is not a condition anymore. It is not even a state of mind. It is a worm, a virus and a relentless evil in this age of materialism. There is just too much work and too less time. The competition will eat into your share if you don’t move fast, and that colleague you share your lunch with won’t think even once before stepping on you for your well deserved promotion. Scary, isn’t it? And the worst part is that most of us actually do live in the shadow of this fear almost all the time and the skepticism it breeds in the workplace only adds fuel to the fire called stress. But that, dear friend, is not how it should be. Actually most of us don’t even realise the simple fact that all the stress is just in the mind. We get so busy working that our lives take a whole new meaningless existence, which makes our lives empty. And it is this emptiness that stresses us and makes us hate our work, all the more. Don’t fall for this creepy hollow. Follow some advice and have a stress free life.

 

Your first job at fighting stress must be to figure out the reason of stress. Most of the times we blame our colleagues, our bosses and our subordinates for our stress, but what we fail to understand is that we also have responsibilities towards the organisation. So first of all figure out whether it is the monotony of the job that is killing you or it is just your boredom in life that is getting onto you. Be objective and do not lie to yourself.

 

Most of the workplace stress arises out of lack of organisation abilities. The work that you keep putting off for tomorrow keeps piling on your desk and the mere sight of the overflowing files is enough to give you frenzy, especially when the deadline approaches. So finish your work on or before time based upon their priorities and keep your desk clean and free of all backlogs. There is no sight more refreshing than that of a workstation that is clean and organised. And don’t forget to break your tasks into smaller jobs. This saves a lot of effort and stress.

 

If you think that sitting on your office chair all day long amounts to hard work and gives you a good impression in front of your seniors, think again. Just warming your chair all day long doesn’t automatically amount to hatching plans and being efficient. The need for breaks can never be undermined in creativity and excellence. Take your coffee breaks and even nap breaks if your company allows it. This will refresh you and believe it or not, the next time you sit for work, you would do the task with double efficiency at half time.

 

Working after office hours would not make you more efficient. It would rather kill your personal life and would invariably affect your professional life too. So, make a good work schedule i.e., reach on time, leave on time and make sure you spend your time after office with friends and family and of course, yourself. Your emotional and physical well being is your responsibility and do not shrug it off in the name of being a workaholic. You can even build and pursue an old hobby right after office, if there isn’t much you’d like to do at home.

 

You cannot stay silent and be happy at the same time. You must build healthy communication networks in your office and spend more fun time with your colleagues. This will not only de-stress by way of the fun that you’ll have, but also bring you closer to your colleagues and hence develop a healthy and friendly workplace atmosphere. However, you must make sure that you maintain a semi-professional attitude with them and not make any rude or personal remarks about other colleagues in general.

Make sure that you never ever fall in the pit of perfectionism. Perfection is a myth and when you are in an office you are a part of the team and everybody has an individual style of working. You mustn’t, at any cost, impose your ideals and ways on others. Learn to delegate work and responsibility. And make sure you are clear about the output you want. The process may vary but the result would be the same - that of success and happiness.

And finally it all boils down to the attitude. If you are happy, the world around becomes kinder and sweeter. Try to keep the “cannots” away from your vocabulary. You can do a lot of things, but at the same time, make sure you don’t over commit. Just stay happy and work to your full potential. Things would turn out in your favor soon.