If you’re stressed at work or in your personal life, the first step to feeling better is to identify the cause. Here NHS Choices gives its top ten tips for beating stress.
The most unhelpful thing you can do is turn to something unhealthy to help you cope, such as smoking or drinking.
“In life, there’s always a solution to a problem,” says Professor Cary Cooper, an occupational health expert at the University of Lancaster. “Not taking control of the situation and doing nothing will only make your problems worse.”
He says the keys to good stress management are building emotional strength, being in control of your situation, having a good social network and adopting a positive outlook.
Exercise won’t make your stress disappear, but it will reduce some of the emotional intensity that you’re feeling, clearing your thoughts and letting you to deal with your problems more calmly.
For more advice, read how being active helps mental wellbeing.
There’s a solution to any problem. “If you remain passive, thinking, ‘I can’t do anything about my problem’, your stress will get worse,” says Professor Cooper. “That feeling of loss of control is one of the main causes of stress and lack of wellbeing.”
The act of taking control is in itself empowering, and it’s a crucial part of finding a solution that satisfies you and not someone else.
Read tips on how to manage your time.
A good support network of colleagues, friends and family can ease your work troubles and help you see things in a different way.
“If you don’t connect with people, you won’t have support to turn to when you need help,” says Professor Cooper.
The activities we do with friends help us relax. We often have a good laugh with them, which is an excellent stress reliever.
“Talking things through with a friend will also help you find solutions to your problems,” says Professor Cooper.
Here in the UK, we work the longest hours in Europe, meaning we often don’t spend enough time doing things we really enjoy.
“We all need to take some time for socialising, relaxation or exercise,” says Professor Cooper.
He recommends setting aside a couple of nights a week for some quality “me time” away from work. “By earmarking those two days, it means you won’t be tempted to work overtime,” he says.
Setting yourself goals and challenges, whether at work or outside, such as learning a new language or a new sport, helps to build confidence. This will help you deal with stress.
“By continuing to learn, you become more emotionally resilient as a person,” says Professor Cooper. “It arms you with knowledge and makes you want to do things rather than be passive, such as watching TV all the time.”
Don’t rely on alcohol, smoking and caffeine as your ways of coping. “Men more than women are likely to do this. We call this avoidance behaviour,” says Professor Cooper. “Women are better at seeking support from their social circle.”
Over the long term, these crutches won’t solve your problems. They’ll just create new ones. “It’s like putting your head in the sand,” says Professor Cooper. “It might provide temporary relief, but it won’t make the problems disappear. You need to tackle the cause of your stress.”
Professor Cooper says evidence shows that people who help others, through activities such as volunteering or community work, become more resilient.
“Helping people who are often in situations worse than yours will help you put your problems into perspective,” says Professor Cooper. “The more you give, the more resilient and happy you feel.”
If you don’t have time to volunteer, try to do someone a favour every day. It can be something as small as helping someone to cross the road or going on a coffee run for colleagues.
Working smarter means prioritising your work, concentrating on the tasks that will make a real difference. “Leave the least important tasks to last,” says Cooper. “Accept that your in-tray will always be full. Don’t expect it to be empty at the end of the day.”
Look for the positives in life, and things for which you’re grateful.
“People don’t always appreciate what they have,” says Professor Cooper. “Try to be glass half full instead of glass half empty,” he says.
Try writing down three things that went well, or for which you’re grateful, at the end of every day.
Changing a difficult situation isn’t always possible. Try to concentrate on the things you do have control over.
“If your company is going under and is making redundancies, for example, there’s nothing you can do about it,” says Professor Cooper.
“In a situation like that, you need to focus on the things that you can control, such as looking for a new job.”
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Brilliant, marvelous, terrific, excellent advise for those “living to work” who are engaged with their and have some meaning and purpose just feeling the pressure and demands of the workplace.
However, for those experiencing the negative affects of over-exposure to the pressures and demands of the workplace, exacerbated by socio-psychologically sub-optimal conditions, loss of meaning and purpose who, over time, are feeling less engaged, even marginalised through a sense of “approval deprivation” and, are now ‘working to live’, taking control of their work/life is not so easily achieved.
Of course, ‘failing to plan is planning to fail’ nevertheless, addressing the issues surrounding poor or even toxic interpersonal relationships at work is a serious challenge when feeling captive and ‘working to live’ has become a survival strategy as the degree of performance anxiety has grown driven now by work stress fatigue.
For far too many who have already lost their sense of Wellbeing and have been self-medicating to reduce the symptoms of their work stress fatigue through use of performance enhancing caffeine in coffee or energy drinks or comfort eating then ant-acids and/or analgesics to reduce niggling or more serious “aches and pains” or ‘just the one’ after work has become an ineffective and, far from mitigative solution.
However, human resources are the most flexible and responsive assets an employer has at their disposal in the man-machine world of the modern workplace and with a little tweaking of the environment or little modification or optimisation of the conditions their perform and productivity maybe conserved even restored and augmented by fostering a pro-social culture thereby reducing exposure to the hazards and risks undermining, limiting and/or preventing a genuine sense of Wellbeing.
Same ole, same old, “CHICKEN & EGG CONUNDRUM” which comes first and again we are here today revisiting the reactions to and “after the fact” warning signs / symptoms of work related “stress fatigue”, rather than, being pro-active and predictive of the “given” foreseeable scenario outlined in the article.
Like, you know, DIY HEAL YOURSELF advise maybe perceived as relatively simple’sss but, the spiral of “functional” decline (emotional and metabolic) to the point where anyone is manifesting a degree of self-harm sufficient to be presenting with the above sub-optimal behaviours and/or already becoming withdrawn, ineffective, defensive, irascible, inactive, sleep deprived and/or self-medicating is, sort of, too late Ethel…
They will already be the “working wounded”, suffering presenteeism, where the lights are on but, no one is really in, working longer to try and keep-up, frustrated by increased error rates and putting them right if spotted, minor mishaps and at greater risk of omissions, poor judgment, loss of concentration, impaired short term memory and experiencing a degree of performance anxiety.
By this time, peers and management will have picked up on poor performance and they will be experiencing a degree of “approval deprivation” adding to the work-stress………
If, not mitigated, they will already be on the slippy slimy slope toward “adaptation exhaustion” and, inevitably ill-health sufficient to require some ‘down-time’ off sick for a work-stress related illness.
Over time, with continued cycles of returning to the same old stressors low and behold a more serious non-communicable disease will ensure a life changing great escape or termination of working life-cycle.