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Work is stressful – life is stressful. Sadly, escaping the stresses of the average day can be tough work. When you are in that position, it might be tough to cut down on your day-to-day stress levels. When you feel like this, we recommend that you try and take the time to act on these practical tips. Each tip is easily put in place, and will likely go some way to making sure that your days in work are no longer anywhere near as stressful as they might first appear.
1. Identify your sources of stress
First off, work out what is making you so stressed out and angry in the first place. Often, it can even be something that has nothing to do with work. Are you bringing home problems into the office with you? If you are, you might want to find out what is causing you to take that stress into work.
If you identify the source of the stress, you can usually then work to find a solution. Don’t just think that “everything” is messed up: work out what the issue is, and then take the steps to identify a solution.
2. Eat healthily and on a regular base
Try eating on a more regular basis – but eating smaller, healthier snacks. Instead of gorging on three big meals, split it into five smaller meals. You can find it easier to make a creative, healthy meal when you are not trying to make three ‘big’ meals. Healthy food is often smaller in size, so you can usually find it easier to get creative with five smaller means than three larger meals.
Increase your food intake to avoid hunger pangs, and eat healthier, more natural foods to avoid putting excess physical stress on your body with weight gain and physical limitations.
3. Move your body
A bit of exercise will do so much to help you stay happy and de-stressed at work: particularly in sedentary roles. We recommend that you try and do 5-15 minutes of exercise for every 1hr of work that you do. A simple series of stretches, a quick walk around the office, even a ten minute yoga session… they’ll all go some way to making sure you can move your body and feel good as you do it.
You’ll be surprised how uncluttered your mind becomes with some basic exercise, so try it out and you’ll immediately start to feel better!
4. Keep a good work/Life balance
The last thing that you want to do is take your work home with you, and your personal problems into the office. Try and find a way to separate both sides of your life. When you get home at night, relax, and stop thinking about work. Put 100% into every shift that you do: this makes it far less likely that you will come home and feel guilty about your work performance. One of the many ways in which people relax is by playing games or evening trying their luck.
You’ll be far less stressed if you don’t always combine personal and professional issues. It’s tough to do, of course, but a bit of discipline can go a long way. So, keep up the work/life balance, and you should start to find that life is far less stressful.
5. Frame your work relationships in a positive light
When you start to think about the people that you work with, you can find it easy to be dismissive. When you arrive at work already with a bad opinion of someone, though, you are starting the day off in a negative manner. Instead of thinking Joe in accounts is annoying and Joanna in HR is out to get you, look at it from a more positive perspective.
This can help you to build better relationships with your colleagues, making your day more likely to be co-operative. You’ll be shocked to find out how beneficial this can be to workplace morale!
6. Be creative
Creativity is a key part of making sure you can enjoy your working day a bit more. Try and spend some time at night looking at your day-to-day routine, and try to look at how you could become more attentive. You are very much likely to find that your routine could be a bit more ambitious. If you do that, you will be much more likely to actually get through the working day and enjoy it.
A large part of stress in work comes from a monotonous working schedule. This helps you to break free of such dull scheduling with ease.
7. Get good sleep
A high sleeping quality is important to making sure you can absorb the stresses and challenges of the day. A good quality of sleep is hard to get, but it means probably depriving yourself of a bit of TV at night. Cut down on the entertainment before bed, and you can probably get that extra hour or so that you need.
With even just another hour in bed, you can make sure that you arrive in work more than capable of attacking the day. A rested body is one that can more readily stand-up to stress.
8. Be Kind to Yourself
Lastly, simply be a bit kinder to yourself. Don’t be so disparaging because you made a mistake, and don’t spend so much time focusing on your limits. Think of all the things that you do well, and you will be much more likely to stay in an optimistic mood. Always be kind to yourself: only then can you be truly kind to others.
