How to Beat Work Stress in Five Simple Steps

Stress, for many people, is an unavoidable fact of life. Work stress, financial stress, commuting stress, familial stress, emotional stress – stress is everywhere! The thing is, it’s not stress that’s the problem but our response to it.

When you are stressed, your body goes into “fight or flight” mode. Fight or flight was once a very useful process that kept your ancestors alive.

Picture the scene: 10,000 years ago, you’re in your loincloth walking through the jungle searching for food. Out of nowhere, a tiger leaps out at you. In that instant, your body goes from zero to one hundred miles-per-hour and dumps a huge amount of adrenalin into your system.

This results in:

·         Elevated heart rate

·         Increased blood pressure

·         Blood diverted away from the digestive system and into your muscles

·         Your pupils narrow

·         You start to sweat

·         Lots of glucose is dumped into your blood

·         Your muscles become tense

·         You are ready to fight or run for your life!

Being a hardy soul, you turn and run like the wind and, thankfully, you escape the tiger. You reach a safe haven, sit down, catch your breath, and relax. Slowly but surely your body returns to its pre-stress state – commonly called homeostasis.

Unfortunately, your body responds to mental stress in the same way it does physical stress. A little stress is good; it’s what gets you up in the morning, makes sure you hit your deadlines, or perform at your best on the squash court. However, constant stress is exhausting and can cause many mental and physical problems.

Stress, or our response to it, causes systemic inflammation and some experts believe that inflammation is the trigger for almost all illness – including cancer. Stress also increases the production of the hormone cortisol. Cortisol is a catabolic hormone that, in excess, causes muscle breakdown and inhibits fat loss – a deadly duo if you care about your fitness, appearance, and health.

It’s important to reiterate, your body cannot differentiate between physical and mental stress. It responds the same way to a near-death tiger incident and your computer crashing for the fifth time in an hour. With the tiger scenario, you can “work off” that stress by running or fighting for your life. However, it’s not acceptable to smash the living daylights out of your computer even though doing so would probably be a good release of stress.

Because of how stress can affect you, it is essential that you learn to avoid and cope with stress more effectively.

Here are five strategies for beating stress in the workplace:

1. STOP PROCRASTINATING SMALL TASKS

Procrastinating means putting things off – often for no other reason than they are things you don’t want to do. This often means that unwanted small tasks add up and that makes them even less appealing. Left long enough, those initially small tasks can become big issues that increase your stress levels.

Instead of putting small jobs off and allowing them to snowball into big issues, stop procrastinating and get them done as they arise. You’ll feel much happier and less stressed knowing that those small but unpleasant chores are done. 

2. PRIORITISE YOUR TIME

There are only 24 hours in the day, so it’s important that you spend your time wisely – as you would money. If you have a full diary, spend a moment putting your tasks into priority order. Spend your time on the most important tasks of the day, only moving to the less important ones once the big jobs are done.

This is NOT the same as procrastination. Instead, it’s simply making the most of your most valuable resource – your time. With the most important tasks completed, you should then be able to dedicate your remaining time to those less-urgent tasks.

3. LEARN TO DELEGATE

Although this is not always possible, delegating can help reduce your stress levels. If you have a long list of jobs to do, and you have put them into order of importance, see if you can unload some of them onto someone else. Maybe arrange for your groceries to be delivered instead of having to hit the supermarket on your way home from work for example.

Unloading just a couple of less-important tasks per day could mean you have a lot more time to spend on what really matters.

4. TAKE A BREATH…

Stress can mean that you are constantly acting reactively, and if you feel stressed, your reactions will often be hot and fiery. In most cases, this will make a stressful situation worse and not better; stress is contagious!

Instead of reacting instantly to everything and everyone around you, spreading your stress, take a breath and compose yourself before acting or responding. In a lot of cases, reacting calmly will defuse the situation and reduce your stress levels in the process.

5. MAKE TIME TO EXERCISE

Exercise is the perfect antidote to stress. It helps reduce anxiety, provides a physical outlet for that “fight or flight” response, and pumps you full of feel-good endorphins which improve your mood and outlook.

Of course, lack of time may be your main stressor, and finding time to exercise can seem impossible, but even a few minutes of vigorous exercise can help. And it’s a good investment of your time as you’ll be more productive afterward.

Walk, cycle, or run to work, grab a quick workout during your lunch break or after work, or just go for a walk to escape the office for 15 minutes. Any and all exercise can help lower your stress levels.

Prolonged exposure to stress can increase fat gain, especially around the abdomen, and may even shorten your life. Modern like is increasingly stressful and almost everyone needs to learn how to control it when it’s unavoidable. If you are a “stress head” who knows that they are more susceptible to stress, this advice is doubly important.