Simple stress management strategies at work
Do you find yourself asking, how can I manage stress at work? Or goggle strategies for stress management, how to manage or reduce stress at work, or any combination of these? You are not alone and you are in the right place.
What I would say right off the bat is that what I hear when I get asked how to reduce stress levels, is how do I feel less affected by the stress in my life.
I have always felt pretty funny about the mantra of "reduce your stress levels" or "manage your stress" like it a scheduling conflict that is easy to resolve. In my mind, there was always a retort of: sure how? I cannot change that deadline, make someone do their piece of work in time to make my job stress free? I don’t have children but I can also hear any number of retorts from parents to this theme also.
So Sure, thanks, I'll get on that.
Hmmm. Not possible.
But the one thing that has likely brough you here is that you want to feel less affected, disrupted, off balance, overwhelmed, nervous, uneasy, concerned, fatigued, drained ... Less of all of these.
I will take you through a few strategies for helping support your stress and anxiety levels in your busy work day.
Disclaimer: these tools individually, and together may help to keep stress and anxiety in check but, I would not expect them to be a complete solution on their own. It may take these in addition with other supportive practices and health care professionals such as a naturopath along side GP and psychologist, body worker (myotherapy, chiropractor, osteopath) and/ or other energy healing work eg acupuncture. I hope it is obvious but you don’t need all of these, but any combination that fit you best.
We are all going to be fairly familiar with the stress, pressure and tension that can come along with having a busy job.
Sometimes, it will be the demands and expectations of the job, it may be that you are in a work environment that isn’t pleasant or supportive and have you feeling alone and isolated, you may not enjoy your work or the work environment and this has you feeling at odds with what you do day to day, or you may have such high expectations of yourself that anything less than excellent is not good enough and are constantly pushing yourself.
Or perhaps the most likely, again, a combination of these.
It is a lot.
Add to that financial pressures and perhaps an unfavourable job market mean you may feel stuck and in a near constant state of stress, nervousness or anxiousness.
Let’s just acknowledge that while the absolute perfect world answer is, change the thing that is causing the stress and tension, (be it the job, the industry, the co-workers) but really that may not be possible and sometimes that is no guarantee to "fix" the actual underlying reason. Not to get too woo woo but, sometimes there are other reasons e.g. past experiences that influence or colour how we view current situations.
This is not to say, stay when you know you should go. You will know what the right move is.... even if it is scary as hell.
But this doesn’t mean you just have to suck it up and recede into a ball of nerves, or be on edge.
So where do I start?
Here are my top 3 tips for managing stress and anxiety during your busy work day.
Have your lunch outside or go for even a 5 minute walk at lunch time. The fresh air (with deep belly breathing), sunshine and movement will help to get you out of your head and back into your body.
Trial a couple of days without that coffee at work. Hear me out!
Coffee is a stimulant, it stimulates the release of adrenaline and cortisol - our stress hormones. Which can kick off or worsen anxiety and nervousness.
If your routine is to grab a coffee on the way to work, or catch up with colleagues each morning while you get a coffee from the cafe, try switching it to decaf or a chai while you experiment, you don/t have to miss out. For some people, this can be the thing the pushes that snowball down the hill that just collects momentum for the rest of the day.
You may already have an awareness of mornings that you feel more heightened, are in a rush and nervous or on edge, these perhaps are the days to avoid coffee.
If you choose to have coffee, I encourage you to make the focus of the coffee about enjoying the sensory aspects of it rather than just waiting for the energy hit, or being on auto pilot, in a hurry or doing a dozen other things at the same time, really savour the taste - it sounds silly but actually make a point to stop and think about it - this is getting into the body :)
Deep belly breathing!
It might sound soo basic or give you om chanting zen vibes (when you still need to get shit done) that it couldn’t possibly help, especially not those times when things feel out of control. But even in these times, there is absolutely nothing to lose by giving it a go.
You can do this anywhere, I bet you could do this in the middle of a meeting. But to start with, try this at your desk, and if that’s not comfortable, you can do it in the toilet cubicle or empty meeting room. The out breath doesn’t need to be loud or forceful to be effective.
Slow down your breathing and take a slow deep breath in to the count of 5, then out to the count of 5. Six rounds of this is 1 minute and while the longer you do it the better, even just this will begin calming the nervous system. You do need to release the belly for this, that means no holding it in. When we hold in our bellies it changes the way we breathe, which happens to mimic stressed state breathing, telling the body to be on alert - even when we are not.
I would love to hear from you and find out how these go for you, reach out through my social, links at the bottom of the page.
If you are feeling like nothing is working or, that it just keep building up, then its time to get support. Book a consult or a free discovery call to have a chat and find out how I can support your stress and anxiety to have you feeling more calm, grounded and at ease.
If none of this feels enough, please also know there are services available to support you, such as Lifeline on 13 11 14 and Beyond Blue at https://www.beyondblue.org.au/ which has both phone and online chat support.
DISCLAIMER: The information provided in this article is for information purposes only and should not be taken as medical advice. We recommend you consult with a GP or other healthcare professional before taking any action based on this article. While the author uses best endeavours to provide accurate and true content, we make no guarantees or promises regarding the accuracy, reliability or completeness of the information presented. If you rely on any information provided in this article, you do so at your own risk.