More Ways To Manage Stress.

If your job is truly that stressful and it is effecting and affecting you negatively then by all means leave your job. It's just not worth it for your health. However, if you have a job that you enjoy and you don't want to leave yet it is a stressful role, here's some other things that you may want to try;

Make a List - Often we get overwhelmed with work and believe that we are so busy that we can't keep up. As we get busier we tend to move quickly from task to task without any structure. This is associated with our brain jumping from one task to another in its feeble attempt to help us, the result being that you jump from task to task. STOP, write a list of tasks, then prioritise these according to importance and work your way methodically through the list. To gain faster control, prioritise your list from the easiest to the hardest which will give you momentum - always pick the low hanging fruit first...

Stop Every Hour - Take 10 minutes every hour away from your work to recuperate and rejuvenate.

Control Your Breathing - As we get under pressure we tend to hunch over and our breathing becomes faster and shallower, we don't get enough air into our lungs to provide that much needed oxygen to our brain. Sit up straight and take long slow controlled breaths as you work.

Ask For Help - If you are like me, you want to do everything yourself and if you are struggling with a problem you want to work it out yourself. Ask for help, delegate work if you can, look for a mentor, or find a more efficient way of doing it.

Imitate Others - Look around you, is there someone you look up to or who seems to be handling the pressure better than you? Examine what they are doing, or better still ask them, and follow their example.

Accept Change - Change is here to stay so get familiar with it. As we struggle to get our head around change we may try to resist it. When you resist the inevitable it plays on your mind and makes things seem worse than they actually are. ‘Resistance is futile’ as the saying goes. Get on board with change, find out what it is and use it as much as you can.

Don't Procrastinate - In a similar way to resisting change, procrastination adds to your bucket of stress by playing on your mind. It niggles at you and reminds you that you have to do it eventually. Do it now or put it on your list and do it as soon as you get to it.

Laugh A Lot - Laughter is the best medicine, the research is overwhelming on this. Be around happy people, read humorous books, or simply smile as much as you can.

These are just some of the little things that you can do to reduce stress in your workday. Most importantly, stop 'thinking' that you are stressed, you aren't. You are just busy and under pressure. No one can make you stressed, they can only try to. More on this tomorrow.