About 80% of workers have felt and reported some sort of stress during performing their job duties. Nearly half of those people also stated that they don’t know how to cope with stress. That’s a piece of stat line that cannot and should not be ignored by any means. Those numbers are clearly indicating that we’re dealing with a downright epidemic.
It’s not our intention to sound like one of those ’prophets of doom’, but when a problem as serious as this one occurs, we need to take every precautionary measure available and known to fight this modern society plague. And at the same time, we need to continue to develop more helpful and effective techniques that are eventually going to stamp out anxiety, burnout and other stress-related symptoms.
What we also have to keep in mind is the fact that the will to change this (for now) bleak scenery has to come from all the parties involved. But it always has to start with you: it doesn’t matter if you’re an employer or an employee, a CEO of a company or a scrub rookie that’s just starting her or his career.
We give you some of the most common ways and tips on how to manage and cope with work-related stress in today’s dog-eat-dog business modus operandi and day and age.
How To Manage Stress If You Are a Worker
Remember how we told you that the will to change the circumstances and the way you feel has to come from within? You might be feeling stress, anxiety or depression-like symptoms for a very long time and not doing anything about it despite the realization. In the back of your head, you are not feeling well and yet you’re not making any conscious decisions to intervene and change that.
Most people are actually aware of the things that are going on but are too afraid to step up and do something about it. They keep doing things that are detrimental to their both mental and physical health, but they just can’t break the spell and get out of that vicious circle.
If you’ve recognized yourself in these lines, you need to sit down and find out what exactly is the thing (or are the things) that is troubling you the most and then start from there. All of us feel stressed out by a myriad of different things. But in general, you would want to avoid the following:
Irregular Sleep Or Not Enough Sleep
Irregular sleep oftentimes stems from excessive workloads. You need to avoid both instances in order to minimize stress levels.
Inadequate Salary
It’s fairly common that you would feel stressed out if you’re not satisfied with your earnings or they don’t translate to the amount of work you’ve put in. Change your job for a better-paid position if it’s possible, and you should instantly feel better in this regard.
Too Demanding Or Not Too Engaging Job Position
Both these extremes can lead to feeling stressed. If you’re constantly worried that you’re underperforming at your job duties it can trigger a lot of anxiety and stress symptoms. The same goes for the contrary – if you think you’re overqualified for that particular job position or the job itself is not challenging enough, you’ll have the same stress levels to cope with.
Make Crucial Lifestyle Changes
Things like cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, junk food, sugar, and refined carbs all make you feel more stressed. You want to completely banish these from your everyday life, if possible. Focus on consuming good fats (like Omega-3 fatty acids), lean protein and complex carbs. On top of that, start exercising regularly and you’ll definitely see major improvements when it comes to managing your stress levels.
How To Help Your Employees Manage Stress If You’re an Employer
Those were all the general tips that should help every worker out there. But if you’re an employer at the same time, you want to do your part and help the employees achieve peace and happiness in their workaday lives. Don’t shy away from these responsibilities. You should consider it your duty to create a stress-free working environment. That’s why you need to do anything that’s in your power to accomplish this (everyone’s) dream of working together in blissful harmony.
What you want to do is, for example, organize seminars and training courses in which the employees would learn how to approach these problems. Companies like Precision Group offer RTO training materials which can be proven very helpful in instances like these. Consider investing in RTO learning materials and assessment tools and you’ll get professional help for your stressed out fellow colleagues. Not only that it will help the ones who are already feeling anxiety, depression or other stress-related signs, but it should also prevent the occurrence of the symptoms in those who haven’t reported any problems yet.
The good thing about this particular approach is that you get both ’trainer’ and ’learner’ manual, so you can perform these workplace training courses with people who are already a part of your company. That way everything stays ’in house’ as it should be the case with all families: and that’s exactly what you should aim for – creating a welcoming, inviting, stress-free and home-like environment for your employees.
Conclusion
Whether you’re an individual worker who’s feeling a bit lost out there in the oftentimes cruel business world, or you are a manager or a leader of a company, you should pay close attention to this modern day era plague called stress. The most important and crucial thing to remember is that the change has to start from you personally. The first thing towards accomplishing a goal of working in a stress-free environment is recognizing what causes you to feel this way. Work actively on removing those instances from your workaday life, and everything gets much easier after that.
If you’re a company leader or a manager, you want to make sure that you play your part in this too – the workers are counting on you and you don’t want to let anyone down. After all, it’s for the betterment of your firm as well.
