Effective Stress Management Increases Productivity At Work
What is “Stress?”
Stress is anything and everything with which we exert a pressure on ourselves.
Basically, this pressure could be a mental tension or physical worry which comes out of us in various other sub forms.
We do need a limited stress which motivates us to react to intense situations. This is positive stress and anything which is under limits, is good for health.
Maintaining a balance in every walk of our life and using our common sense could relieve stress to a lot of extent.
Example: For a cup of coffee, one spoon of sugar is good for health, 3 spoons of sugar are heavy & anything above that could be dangerous.
An organized life style with realistic time frames and metrics could easily overcome unwanted stress at work.
What is “Stress Management?”
Until & unless we can analyze ourselves and stay under calm (especially while dealing with stressful situations), chances are high that our stress gets multiplied.
Surprising reason here is for a particular situation, its hard to measure or check the stress levels which will get multiply unless ready to nullify.
So, stress management forms the list of actions and the level of determination we impose ourselves for a safer and healthier life.
What is “Stress Management @ WORK?”
Stress could be more at work place. On an average, we spend around one-third of our time at work in a day.
So, the more relaxed and calm we are the better our stress management and a safer health.
Steps to find and control Stress
FIRST STEP
Once we find the negative aspects of stress, it is our responsibility to make determination that we will be overcoming stress for a healthy life.
SECOND STEP
There will be lot of changes in terms of body language, chemical reactions within the body etc. between a person who is calm and a person who is undergoing stress.
The difference increases based on the degree of stress that particular person is facing at that time.
Our wisdom lies in identifying whether we are NORMAL or STRESSED.
As soon as the stress is observed within, we have to make every attempt first to control our stress and nothing else, no matter what in front of us.
THIRD STEP
Analyze the situations which are causing stress. Find out what is the real intention behind the stress.
FOURTH STEP
Judge whether the goal is genuine and if genuine and then find out the alternates of achieving the same.
FIFTH STEP
By this step, no matter how stressful the situation was, 90% of the stress will be automatically controlled.
How Stress Management can improve Productivity at work?
If we continue working with stress, unknowingly our focus gets deviated from real work and hence the unnecessary issues crop up.
This is simply a waste of time which needs controlling.
A person under (limited) stress can handle more work than a person under more stress.
This reason also helps in effective use of time, which invariably increased productivity at work.
A person under stress is bound to make more mistakes compared to a person who is calm and relaxed. So, effective work results with less stress.
A person with less stress has certainly a proper mindset which influences his or her relationship with co workers.
This helps in building an ambient work atmosphere. Basically, deviations and unnecessary actions gets resolved.
Result of an effective “Stress Management”
A relaxed, safe and productive work environment results with effective stress management techniques.
It’s top management’s responsibility to make every attempt in creating a stress free atmosphere.
Stress Management: How to Manage Stress at Work?
The ability to manage stress in an effective way is very important to live a balanced life. The following techniques will help you to relief stress.
What are the benefits of stress management?
Stress, the body’s reaction towards stressful situations, is a state of mental suspense that can have negative influences on our lives and on our health.
Stress management helps you to reduce the negative side-effects of stress and allows you to handle stressful situations calmer than before.
In short: it helps you to improve your ability to cope with stress and to avoid stress related conditions, such as chronic headaches, heart diseases and depression.
Another benefit of stress management techniques is that it will help you to avoid careless mistakes, which would cost you a lot of time in order to cut out these mistakes.
How to manage stress at the workplace?
Many employees consider stress as an essential part at their workplace that helps them to meet deadlines and increases their productivity.
However, when stress becomes chronic it is important to take counter-measures.
Time Management:
Time management is an essential skill when it comes to the ability to reduce stress.
In fact: improper time management can be one of the main reasons that cause stress, as we might not be able to meet deadlines and can’t accomplish the targeted tasks and goals.
In our corporate world we are facing workload and time limitations nearly every day, which makes it essential to apply effective time management techniques.
Physical activity
Physical activity and regular exercise can help you to relief stress in an effective way.
Sport in general increases the productions of endorphins and decreases stress hormones.
You do not necessarily need to join a gym or start running every morning; you can also make use of the stress relieving effect of physical activity at the workplace.
As a rule of thumb: keep your body moving! Instead of taking the elevator you could walk up the staircases, take a stroll during your lunch break or just stretch your body in a regular interval, which sitting on your office chair.
Organization
Start prioritizing your tasks from A – very important to C – unimportant and organize your tasks accordingly to their importance and urgency.
If a task is very important and urgent you should focus your time and energy towards the accomplishment of this task, rather than a task that is important but not urgent at all.
I would recommend you to invest five minutes before starting to work where you create a to-do-list with all your upcoming tasks and their prioritization.
Avoid a stressful lifestyle
When we seek for reasons that cause stress we mostly focus on our work environment that we often consider as the main source for stress.
However, it can also be very helpful to reflect our lifestyle we are living and to seek for possible causes that increase our stress level, e.g. sleep deprivation, drugs and our food habits.
One such a cause could be an improper nutrition, with too much sugar, fat and caffeine.
Caffeine is a part of nearly anyone’s breakfast, but it is also a stimulant that raises our level of activity and can make us very nervous, which is the foundation for stress.
