Work Stress
It will be surprising to know that stress isn’t always bad. There are two types of stress. Good stress and bad stress. Good stress is known as Eustress and Bad stress is known as Distress. Workplaces often give you stress, but some amount of stress can be good; it keeps the employees on toes. But when stress causes you to have anxiety and affects your daily life, it can be worrisome. Work can make you feel pressurized and always delivering to deadlines can make you feel drained. Many employees experience stress at their workplace, and this can be a reason for lower performance or compromised performance.
Stressor causes stress. Stressors can be environmental which are external stressors, and there can be psychological stressors. Causes of this stress in a workplace can be:
- Fear of being fired/removed from the job.
- The pressure to meet unrealistic deadlines.
- Feeling helpless, and the feeling of losing control over your life.
- From trying to overwork, and trying to achieve perfection
- Overtime workload.
Stress can have a lot of harmful effects. It negatively impacts your health, both mental and physical health. The following are effects of health:
- Feeling anxious
- Feeling of irritability
- Loss of interest in work
- Insomnia or Hypersomnia
- Fatigue and lethargy.
- Problems concentrating
- Muscle tension
- Headaches
- Social withdrawal or self-isolation.
- Using alcohol or drugs to cope
- Lower self-esteem.
- Sleep deprivation
- Lower job satisfaction.
- In extreme cases, cardiovascular diseases
- Hypertension
Work can often make you feel overwhelmed, and it can challenge your ability to cope. Whenever a stressor, such as work stress, exceeds your coping mechanisms, you feel overworked and anxious. These effects may not just be limited to your psychological state and mental health. Work stress and can also have a domino effect on the other aspects of your life. It can affect your physical health, by draining you out of energy. It can also affect your personal relations and have an impact on your relationship with loved ones. Click here to know more about relationships.
It is important to identify that balancing your work life or professional life and having a boundary with other aspects of your life, such as social life, personal life and your relationship for yourself. Sometimes, the huge amounts of stress can make you think that the harms of the job/work outweigh the benefit that work reaps you. This can also put you in a difficult position. What is important is to identify some healthy coping mechanisms and simple ways you can reduce stress.
Simple steps to reduce stress:
- Redesigning or restructuring your workspace: this can be an effective method. Using lively colour tones and having a spacious workspace has proven to provide a clearer headspace. A crowded or dark office is often associated with feeling stressed and anxious. It is important to keep your environmental factors in check.
- Taking small breaks: delivering deadlines consecutively can be stressful and more than often may overwhelm you. Taking small breaks between work hours reduces stress and gives you a time gap to vent or distract yourself.
- Organize your day: with scheduling your every task and deadline and following a plan, you feel less burdened with work. Use a daily and monthly calendar to have a clear view of all your deliverables. This helps you in keeping track of your work and makes you feel less chaotic.
- Positive reinforcement: work can often feel less rewarding and more consuming than it should be. It can also hamper your self-esteem. To keep yourself motivated, reward yourself, every time you complete a deadline or every time you successfully deliver on work. This makes you feel accomplished and more satisfied with your work.
