Stress is part of every job. Whether you’re pulling all-nighters to meet impending deadlines, worried about your performance review, or irritated with your desk mate, it’s normal to feel nerves and distress from time to time.
However, it doesn’t take much for anxiety about work to follow you home. Soon, you’re up late at night thinking about your big project or your escape route. And with restless nights come long, even more stressful days.
Are you wondering how to fight stress in the workplace? We’ve compiled our top four tips for finding more relaxation from 9 to 5.
#1 Identify Stressors
First things first: figure out what’s stressing you out.
Maybe you already know exactly why you’re stressed—you’re under a lot of pressure! But maybe it’s a more nagging, ambient feeling. If this is the case, paying attention to your triggers over a particular day or week can help you get clear on the most immediate sources of stress.
Here are some examples of stressors:
● A co-worker asks you to complete tasks even though they’re not your boss
● You get delegated more than your fair share of work
● You dread the way your boss gives you feedback
● You get stuck in cycles refreshing your email
Observe your stressors and jot them down as they arise.
In some of these situations, it’s possible that a conversation or two could reduce your stress level. Likewise, you could change your own behavior to avoid the situation. You can always snooze your inbox for an hour!
However, in other cases, there’s simply no obvious solution. When you simply have to deal with a stressor for a while, use the next three tools to combat stress.
#2 Maintain Healthy Workplace Habits
When you’re stressed, hunger, dehydration, and other physical issues can add fuel to the fire. The more frantically you work (or click randomly on websites), the less able you feel to get up, stretch your legs, and hit the vending machine.
That’s why it’s so important to establish and maintain healthy routines.
These include:
● Eating – Make sure you show up at work having already eaten a nutritious breakfast. No time for breakfast? Grab a protein bar on the way out the door. Or, try preparing breakfast the night before – overnight oats make a quick and easy breakfast that you can take with you on the car ride or train to work.
● Avoid caffeine overload – Are you hyped up from excessive coffee? If you find your heart racing and your stomach turning after one too many macchiatos, ditch coffee for an herbal tea or an alternative like green tea—as a tip, matcha is an awesome option you may want to think about trying. We recommend Golde.
● Drink water – It’s just like you learned in school. You need eight glasses per day. No—Coca Cola doesn’t count! Try bringing a reusable water bottle and drinking it down a couple of times a day. This can make it easier to keep track of your water intake.
● Eat lunch – Take full advantage of that 30 minutes or an hour to fill up, hydrate, and even stretch your legs. Pick a day of the week that you will treat yourself – maybe each Friday, you can splurge a little and pick up lunch from a nearby restaurant.
#3 Try CBD
Need a solution to help get your heartrate down in an anxious moment? Reducing stress is one of CBD’s many benefits. This impressive compound can also improve your immunity and help you to feel more physically comfortable. Since stress takes a toll on your body, CBD provides aid on several fronts.
You can take CBD in many forms:
● Oil: This can be either consumed as a tincture or infused into other things like lotion.
● Tablets: Taken like a pill, this gets the CBD directly to you when you need it.
● Edibles: CBD is sometimes infused into baked goods, snacks, and candies that make it simple and fun to eat!
When you’re at work, CBD edibles are the most discreet solution. CBDfx makes the best CBD gummies. Bring a few along in your work bag, and chew on a couple during lunch to take the edge off the worst of your workday blues.
#4 Build Your Community
When you’re stressed in the office, it can feel like you’re the only one who’s struggling. It goes without saying that you don’t need to open up completely to co-workers. However, building healthy relationships with the people you see every day can have positive effects.
Is there a new intern or hire who could use a little extra support? A project you could pitch in on without overextending yourself? If so, volunteer! Helping others confers positive health benefits. Plus, you might even make a life-long friend in the process.
If your manager doesn’t already, you could even organize an office happy hour or barbeque to help everyone blow off a little steam. Socializing is a proven way to take the edge off your stress.
Before you know it, you could spark the change your workplace needs.
Leave Your Work at Work
Remember—you are not your job. Outside of work, you have other meaningful relationships, passions, and responsibilities. These are much more important than work at the end of the day, even if it can often feel like they’re not.
When you’re able to leave your work where it belongs, you have more time to dedicate to everything that’s going well in your life. Set a time each night where you turn off your email notifications, or mute all incoming calls. On weekends, focus on friends on hobbies, rather than thinking about work.
Although it can take some effort, creating healthy strategies to deal with stress at work will benefit other areas of your life. When you get home after a long work week, take a few minutes to vent in your journal or to a friend. Then, put it behind you. The better your weekend, the less you’ll dread Monday.
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