How to manage stress at work
Before I proceed to tell you how to deal with stress, I want to give you some idea of how people respond to stress. Then I want to introduce you to the idea of negative self-talk - one of the great enemies of stress reduction techniques. My first example is Jane who is failing to cope at work.
Jane is 42 years of age; she has had no previous problems, no previous stress attacks, and no mental health episodes. Lately, she has been very distressed at work and has fears that everyone thinks she’s incompetent. She has become over-sensitive to her leader’s feedback and to the looks of her colleagues. You could say that she is slightly paranoid. The outcome of all of this is that she has become socially phobic. She finds it very difficult to go to parties with her husband. She tends to hide in another room so that she doesn′t have to socialize with people.
Jane’s problem is that she is experiencing work stress. She feels constantly worn down and tired. Physically she feels nauseous and sick. Emotionally she feels depressed and terrified of making mistakes and she reports feeling unable to cope with work demands.
Jane is not performing well at work. She can′t manage the stress and her system is overloaded. You feel the same way sometimes too? Can you understand her level of stress? Have life’s events overtaken you? Are you constantly tired and mildly depressed? Do people ask what is wrong with you? Are you tired of life? Are you coping well? Has all of this made it much less effective at work?
If you answered yes you are suffering serious work stress. This is not surprising with the pressure we have at work. Some people think this is a reasonable outcome of a busy work life. After 9/11 research showed a great increase in heart disease. Strokes, cardiac disease and high blood pressure increased. When people were emotionally ill, they were physically ill. Work productivity suffers when people are emotionally unwell.
We need to know what causes this workplace stress. What are the factors that create problems for research work? There are many of them as you will soon see.
These include excessive workplace demands. Poor management and poor communication in the workplace cause stress. Oddly enough, poor relationships at home can cause workplace stress as much as interpersonal conflict with colleagues.
What is the best way to cope in the workplace? In large measure its up to you. You can change jobs but this is not very effective. One clever way to solve the problem of your boss is to list his or her name with a headhunter in the hope that someone else will employ your boss. From my experience the major problem with stress at work is poor role specification. Different perspectives on your work responsibilities will cause stress. The question remains how to solve this problem appropriately.
One way to control workplace stress is to recognize the role of negative thinking. There is an old saying that you are what you think so you have to consider your negative thoughts. If you are stressed you can deal with the problem if you try. You must realize that you have to confront negative self talk. How we feel is shaped by how we think. Self talk occupies much of our day.
What I am going to say sounds simple but it is true. We are our own worst enemy because we constantly criticize ourselves. The ratio of negative to positive thought is 10 to 1. Our constant self-criticism causes stress. Our situation can be made worse if our friends and loved ones criticize us. To start to manage workplace stress and personal stress we need to begin by eliminating negative self talk and increasing positive self regard.
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