10 tips for reducing workplace stress
Reducing stress is a two-way street. While businesses should implement policies to address stress, employees also can implement stress-reduction strategies. Here are some tips:
1. Maintain a sense of personal power. A study of high-pressure work environments by Essi, a San Francisco research firm, shows one factor that predicts which employees would become ill and which stayed healthy: people’s perception of how much control you feel you have over your life, your ability to function and express yourself.
2. Practice effective communication. Whether you head a team or are a team of one, how effective you are at communication depends on how well you understand others’ verbal and nonverbal messages. Pay attention to coworkers’ gestures, tone of voice and posture.
3. Develop good working relationships. Trust, respect, understanding and compassion are necessary in any relationship. Good work relationships will relieve stress and can buffer you from other stresses. Spend five minutes of each hour considering how to get along with your coworkers.
4. Choose the right job. During interviews, ask the questions that help you make sure the job’s right for you. Get a realistic picture of the company or department’s culture, working relationships, problems and hidden agendas.
5. Be flexible. Recognize and accept that things change. If you want to hold on tightly to the status quo, you need to loosen up. Think of your organization as a spaceship. It is constantly correcting its course, “to go where no man has gone before” in the marketplace.
6. Manage your anger. When you feel a surge of anger rising, back off and leave the scene as soon as you can. Repeat in your mind: “Let go” or “Relax.” Breathe deeply until you feel your tension leave.
7. Have realistic expectations. Don’t set yourself up for disappointment or put yourself on an emotional roller coaster. This outlook doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have desires or expectations. Just make sure you’re not always longing for the impossible.
8. Adjust your attitude. How you make others feel about you and how you make them feel about themselves can make or break your future.
9. Tie up loose ends. Not being able to finish a task can be unsettling to those who like to shut doors and end sentences with a period. Most people need some kind of closure on projects, even the little ones.
10. Take time to revive. It has long been recognized that people need to take a little time off every few hours to revive. They return to their tasks with renewed enthusiasm. If you can, try not to take work home. Every now and then a project may take some extra time, but work shouldn’t be devouring your life.
Source: Gloria Dunn / Wiser Ways to Work
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