Stress comes with work (even if you love what you do), but an unhealthy amount of anxiety harms employees’ performance. When workers experience too much stress, they tend to lose their drive, get distracted, and worse, give up on their role altogether. When this happens, the whole team will fail to meet deadlines and goals. Workers must adhere to stress management techniques to avoid these pitfalls.
Aside from performance, stress has a huge effect in workers’ health. Work-related stress can exhaust employers, leave them depressed, and weaken their immune systems. In this article, we list down major causes of stress and suggest effective ways to deal with the pressure.
Primary Causes of Stress at Work
Stress is hard to avoid. However, one of the most important stress management techniques is knowing the cause to reduce its physical, mental, and emotional effects. Hence, in dealing with stress at work, it is important to pinpoint the culprit. Take note of these three leading causes of job stress:
1. Company Culture
Working relationships take the center stage in health and well-being of an employee. Nagging bosses, office bullies, and annoying colleagues cause workers to feel abused and downcast. In effect, workers resent the workplace then transfer the same feelings towards the whole team, the company, and their roles. To tailor your stress management techniques, you should also consider your company culture.
2. Effort-Rewards Inequity
Researchers questioned the employees and found that this inequity is the top cause of workplace stress. To counter that, effective stress management techniques comes in the forms of rewards. Some of these rewards are: a reasonable wage for the job demands, getting promoted, and even just praises from their boss can do wonders. Nonetheless, when employees feel short changed or ignored, they lose interest and the willpower to work. They doubt their skills and think unhealthy thoughts that bring negative outputs.
3. Work-Life Imbalance
Stress management is essential to rescue workers from quitting even when they clock out from work. Since people have easy access to technology, their vacation leaves, rest days, and day-offs get disrupted; receiving urgent requests via email or boss ringing their mobile phone for a “quick” inquiry more than ten times a day. Thus, workers feel overworked even when they are outside the office. Employees who experience these become top candidates for job burnout.
Stress Management Techniques at Work
Since we learned what flames up stress, we can now deal with it to lessen its adverse effects. Perhaps, the most important among the stress management techniques is the ability to identify and talk about it. In any relationship, communication is the key. If you are neck-deep in stress, be open to your bosses and discuss it with them. Dealing with stress at work alone can be hard. However, having a support system will make things lighter and easier.
How to Manage Stress on Your Own
- Live a healthy lifestyle – Get enough sleep, eat healthy, and exercise. External affairs won’t pull you down when you feel good from within.
- Take vacations – Perhaps the favorite of employees among the different stress management techniques is taking vacations. Employees such as yourself must ward off creative blocks and mini burnouts by rewarding yourself with a well-deserved vacation and leisure time. Take time to refuel. Small or big accomplishment, you deserve a break. Make this your new mantra: “We are not born just to pay bills.”
- Stay away from negativity – Wave goodbye at toxic people as much as possible. Find a circle of office friends that could bring you more joy than work-related stress.
- Learn yoga and meditation – Roll out your mats and make this a habit. Yoga and meditation detoxify your mind and body. This not only leads you to a healthy and focused outlook in life but also brings positivity and energy towards your perspective.
Thank the experts for providing these stress management techniques that are effective in managing unavoidable workplace stress.
Source: Health.com | Rappler.com | WillisTowersWatson.com | Healthline.com
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