Does your work keep you up at night? Are you constantly stressed about what needs to get done and don’t know how to relax? If your work is causing massive amounts of stress it’s important you learn healthy ways to manage it. Some stress at work is normal, but when it gets out of hand it can cause physical problems and affect your everyday life. Excessive stress can cause insomnia, headaches, frequent sick days, anxiety, depression, and can also affect your home life. Lucky for you there are many ways to cope and manage stress levels. Let’s dive in.
Here are 8 tips on how to manage stress from work.
- Be organized. Walking into work with 20 things on your to do list is a sure way to make anyone stress out. Learn how to manage your tasks by staying organized and creating a to do list. We recommend highlighting your top three tasks of the day and to give each task a deadline. It helps to see the most important things that need to get done and divides your work up into smaller, more manageable goals.
- Exercise. Moving your body releases endorphins that make you feel better. Even small efforts throughout the day to stay more active is beneficial. For example, get up from your desk and do some squats. You could even take the stairs instead of using the elevator. If the weather is nice, go for a short walk during your lunch break. Your body and mind will thank you.
- Practice mindfulness activities like yoga, meditation, and deep breathing. These have all been scientifically proven to lower cortisol levels. Even taking 1 minute out of your busy day to do some deep breathing can drastically lower your stress levels.
- Eat healthy food. While it is normal to turn to sugary snacks when stressed, it’s not beneficial for your productivity. Sugary foods typically cause energy crashes making it harder to accomplish your goals. Be sure to eat lean protein, carbs, healthy fats, and fiber rich food.
- Make sleep a priority. Being sleep deprived is just an added stressor to your work day. While we can’t always avoid insomnia, we can practice healthy sleep hygiene to train our body to get tired in bed. A big part of healthy sleep hygiene is to leave electronics out of the bedroom. It’s also important to save your bed just for sleeping. If you spend time in bed while not going to sleep, your body associates your bed to staying awake. If you can’t fall asleep in 20 minutes, experts recommend getting up and reading.
- Set realistic goals and avoid perfectionistic tendencies. A perfectionist mindset leads to constantly beating yourself up for not living up to your set expectations. This is not a healthy mindset to have because not only does it add stress to your life, it decreases productivity when you are stressing or overplaying perceived failures.
- Affirm what you did well. At the end of the day start listing at least 3 things you did well at work. This will train your mind to think positively and give yourself the praise you deserve.
- Set boundaries and learn to say no. It’s important to create healthy boundaries with your coworkers and boss.
Follow these tips and watch your work stress melt away. No, it won’t completely disappear but now you will know how to better manage it. Try out several different ways to manage your stress and see which one or combination of tips work best for you!