Stress at Work????How to Reduce and Manage Job and Workplace Stress???

In this difficult economy, you may find it harder than ever to cope with challenges on the job. Both the stress we take with us when we go to work and the stress that awaits us on the job are on the rise – and employers, managers, and workers all feel the added pressure. While some stress is a normal part of life, excessive stress interferes with your productivity and reduces your physical and emotional health, so it’s important to find ways to keep it under control. Fortunately, there is a lot that you can do to manage and reduce stress at work.

Coping with work stress in today’s uncertain climate

For workers everywhere, the troubled economy may feel like an emotional roller coaster. "Layoffs" and "budget cuts" have become bywords in the workplace, and the result is increased fear, uncertainty, and higher levels of stress. Since job and workplace stress grow in times of economic crisis, it’s important to learn new and better ways of coping with the pressure. The ability to manage stress in the workplace can make the difference between success or failure on the job. Your emotions are contagious, and stress has an impact on the quality of your interactions with others. The better you are at managing your own stress, the more you'll positively affect those around you and the less other people's stress will negatively affect you.
You can learn how to manage job stress

There are a variety of steps you can take to reduce both your overall stress levels and the stress you find on the job and in the workplace. These include:

* Taking responsibility for improving your physical and emotional well-being.
* Avoiding pitfalls by identifying knee jerk habits and negative attitudes that add to the stress you experience at work.
* Learning better communication skills to ease and improve your relationships with management and coworkers.

Warning signs of excessive stress at work

When people feel overwhelmed, they lose confidence and become irritable or withdrawn, making them less productive and effective and their work less rewarding. If the warning signs of work stress go unattended, they can lead to bigger problems. Beyond interfering with job performance and satisfaction, chronic or intense stress can also lead to physical and emotional health problems.
Signs and symptoms of excessive job and workplace stress

* Feeling anxious, irritable, or depressed
* Apathy, loss of interest in work.
* Problems sleeping
* Fatigue,
* Trouble concentrating



* Muscle tension orheadaches
* Stomach problems
* Social withdrawal
* Loss of sex drive
* Using alcohol or drugs to cope

Common causes of excessive workplace stress

* Fear of layoffs
* Increased demands for overtime due to staff cutbacks
* Pressure to perform to meet rising expectations but with no increase in job satisfaction
* Pressure to work at optimum levels – all the time!

Reducing job stress by taking care of yourself

When stress on the job is interfering with your ability to work, care for yourself, or manage your personal life, it’s time to take action. Start by paying attention to your physical and emotional health. When your own needs are taken care of, you’re stronger and more resilient to stress. The better you feel, the better equipped you’ll be to manage work stress without becoming overwhelmed.

Taking care of yourself doesn’t require a total lifestyle overhaul. Even small things can lift your mood, increase your energy, and make you feel like you’re back in the driver’s seat. Take things one step at a time, and as you make more positive lifestyle choices, you’ll soon notice a noticeable difference in your stress level, both at home at work.
Get moving

Aerobic exercise –perspiring -is an effective anti-anxiety treatment lifting mood, increasing energy, sharpening focus and relaxing mind and body. For maximum stress relief, try to get at least 30 minutes of hear pounding activity on most days but activity can be broken up into two or three short segments.

For more information, see Making Exercise Fun.
Make food choices that keep you going and make you feel good

Eating small but frequent meals throughout the day maintains an even level of blood sugar in your body. Low blood sugar makes you feel anxious and irritable. On the other hand, eating too much can make you lethargic.

To learn more about food that have a calming effect, lift your mood and make you feel good, see Tips for a Healthy Diet.
Drink alcohol in moderation and avoid nicotine

Alcohol temporarily reduces anxiety and worry, but too much can cause anxiety as it wears off. Drinking to relieve job stress can also start you on a path to alcohol abuse and dependence. Similarly, smoking when you're feeling stressed and overwhelmed may seem calming, but nicotine is a powerful stimulant – leading to higher, not lower, levels of anxiety.
Get enough sleep

Stress and worry can cause insomnia. But lack of sleep also leaves you vulnerable to stress. When you're sleep deprived, your ability to handle stress is compromised. When you're well-rested, it's much easier to keep your emotional balance, a key factor in coping with job and workplace stress.

For more information, see Tips for a Good Night's Sleep.
Reducing job stress by prioritizing and organizing

When job and workplace stress surrounds you, you can’t ignore it, but there are simple steps you can take to regain control over yourself and the situation. Your growing sense of self-control will also be perceived by others as the strength it is, leading to better relationships at work. Here are some suggestions for reducing job stress by prioritizing and organizing your responsibilities.
Time management tips for reducing job stress

* Create a balanced schedule. Analyze your schedule, responsibilities, and daily tasks. All work and no play is a recipe for burnout. Try to find a balance between work and family life, social activities and solitary pursuits, daily responsibilities and downtime.
* Don’t over-commit yourself. Avoid scheduling things back-to-back or trying to fit too much into one day. All too often, we underestimate how long things will take. If you've got too much on your plate, distinguish between the "shoulds" and the "musts." Drop tasks that aren't truly necessary to the bottom of the list or eliminate them entirely.
* Try to leave earlier in the morning. Even 10-15 minutes can make the difference between frantically rushing to your desk and having time to ease into your day. Don’t add to your stress levels by running late.
* Plan regular breaks. Make sure to take short breaks throughout the day to sit back and clear your mind. Also try to get away from your desk for lunch. Stepping away from work to briefly relax and recharge will help you be more, not less, productive.

Task management tips for reducing job stress

* Prioritize tasks. Make a list of tasks you have to do, and tackle them in order of importance. Do the high-priority items first. If you have something particularly unpleasant to do, get it over with early. The rest of your day will be more pleasant as a result.
* Break projects into small steps. If a large project seems overwhelming, make a step-by-step plan. Focus on one manageable step at a time, rather than taking on everything at once.
* Delegate responsibility. You don’t have to do it all yourself, whether at home, school, or on the job. If other people can take care of the task, why not let them? Let go of the desire to control or oversee every little step. You’ll be letting go of unnecessary stress in the process.

Reducing workplace stress by improving emotional intelligence

Even if you’re in a job where the environment has grown increasingly stressful, you can retain a large measure of self-control and self-confidence by understanding and practicing emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is the ability to manage and use your emotions in positive and constructive ways. It's about communicating with others in ways that draw people to you, overcome differences, repair wounded feelings, and defuse tension and stress.
Emotional intelligence in the workplace:

Emotional intelligence in the workplace has four major components:

* Self-awareness – The ability to recognize your emotions and their impact while using gut feelings to guide your decisions.
* Self-management – The ability to control your emotions and behavior and adapt to changing circumstances.
* Social awareness – The ability to sense, understand, and react to other's emotions and feel comfortable socially.
* Relationship management – The ability to inspire, influence, and connect to others and manage conflict.

Reducing stress in the workplace with emotional intelligenceReducing stress in the workplace with emotional intelligence

The more emotional intelligence you have, the more stress you can avoid in the workplace. Fortunately, emotional intelligence is not something we’re born with; it’s something we can learn and develop.

To learn how to increase your emotional intelligence, read Five Key Skills for Raising Your Emotional Intelligence.

The skill set that enables you to acquire these capabilities can be learned but requires the development of emotional and nonverbal ways of communicating that include:

* Learning to recognize your particular stress response and become familiar with sensual cues that can rapidly calm and energize you.
* Staying connected to your internal emotional experience so you can appropriately manage your own emotions. Knowing what you are feeling will not only add to your self confidence and improve your self control but enhance your understanding of others and help you build more satisfying relationships.
* Learning to recognize and effectively use the nonverbal cues that make up 95-98% of your communication process including eye contact, facial expression, tone of voice, posture , gesture and touch. Its not what you say but how you say it that impacts others –for better or worse.
* Developing the capacity to meet challenges with humor. There is no better stress buster than a hardy laugh and nothing reduces stress quicker in the workplace than mutually shared humor. But, if the laugh is at someone else’s expense, you may end up with more rather than less stress.
* Learning to navigate conflict by becoming a good listener and someone who can face conflict fearlessly with the expectation that differences resolved will strengthen the relationship.

Reducing workplace stress by breaking bad habits

As you learn to manage your job stress and improve your work relationships, you’ll have more control over your ability to think clearly and act appropriately. You will be able to break habits that add to your stress at work – and you’ll even be able to change negative ways of thinking about things that only add to your stress.
Eliminate self-defeating behaviors

Many of us make job stress worse with patterns of thought or behavior that keep us from relieving pressure on ourselves. If you can turn around these self-defeating habits, you’ll find employer-imposed stress easier to handle.

* Resist perfectionism. No project, situation, or decision is ever perfect, and you put undue stress on yourself by trying to do everything perfectly. When you set unrealistic goals for yourself or try to do too much, you’re setting yourself up to fall short. Do your best, and you’ll do fine.
* Clean up your act. If you’re always running late, set your clocks and watches fast and give yourself extra time. If your desk is a mess, file and throw away the clutter; just knowing where everything is saves time and cuts stress. Make to-do lists and cross off items as you accomplish them. Plan your day and stick to the schedule — you’ll feel less overwhelmed.
* Flip your negative thinking. If you see the downside of every situation and interaction, you’ll find yourself drained of energy and motivation. Try to think positively about your work, avoid negative-thinking co-workers, and pat yourself on the back about small accomplishments, even if no one else does.

Find Ways to Dispel Stress

* Get time away. If you feel stress building, take a break. Walk away from the situation. Take a stroll around the block, sit on a park bench, or spend a few minutes meditating. Exercise does wonders for the psyche. But even just finding a quiet place and listening to your iPod can reduce stress.
* Talk it out. Sometimes the best stress-reducer is simply sharing your stress with someone close to you. The act of talking it out – and getting support and empathy from someone else – is often an excellent way of blowing off steam and reducing stress.
* Cultivate allies at work. Just knowing you have one or more co-workers who are willing to assist you in times of stress will reduce your stress level. Just remember to reciprocate and help them when they are in need.
* Find humor in the situation. When you – or the people around you – start taking things too seriously, find a way to break through with laughter. Share a joke or funny story.

Adapted from Quintessential Careers
What managers or employers can do to reduce stress at work

It's in a manager's best interest to keep stress levels in the workplace to a minimum. Managers must act as positive role models, especially in times of high stress. All of the tips mentioned in this article are twice as important for managers to follow. If someone that we admire remains calm, it is much easier to remain calm ourselves – and vice versa! There are also organizational changes that managers and employers can make to reduce workplace stress.
Improve communication

* Share information with employees to reduce uncertainty about their jobs and futures.
* Clearly define employees’ roles and responsibilities.
* Make communication friendly and efficient, not mean-spirited or petty.

Consult your employees

* Give workers opportunities to participate in decisions that affect their jobs.
* Consult employees about scheduling and work rules.
* Be sure the workload is suitable to employees’ abilities and resources; avoid unrealistic deadlines.
* Show that individual workers are valued.

Offer rewards and incentives

* Praise good work performance verbally and institutionally.
* Provide opportunities for career development.
* Promote an “entrepreneurial” work climate that gives employees more control over their work.

Cultivate a friendly social climate

* Provide opportunities for social interaction among employees.
* Establish a zero-tolerance policy for harassment.
* Make management actions consistent with organizational values.

Emotions are “the glue” that connect people to one another. They are the foundation of your ability to understand yourself and relate to others.

When you are aware and in control of your emotions, you can think clearly and creatively; manage stress and challenges; communicate well with others; and display trust, empathy, and confidence. But lose control of your emotions, and you’ll spin into confusion, isolation, and doubt. By learning to recognize, manage, and deal with your emotions, you’ll enjoy greater happiness and health and better relationships.

The power of your emotions

Babies are bundles of emotion, experiencing intense emotions of fear, anger, sadness, and joy within their first eight weeks of life. As an infant, your emotions connected you to your primary caregiver in what was the first relationship of your life. Throughout life, emotions continue to serve this same purpose: connecting us to others.

Without emotions and an awareness and understanding of them, it’s impossible to build or maintain strong, healthy relationships. The feelings of others will escape you unless you’re familiar with your own emotions. The more aware you are of your own emotions, the easier it will be for you to pick up on what others are feeling and accurately read their wants and needs.
Your emotions help you:

* understand yourself, including your deeply-felt needs
* understand and empathize with others
* communicate clearly and effectively
* make decisions based on the things that are most important to you
* get motivated and take action to meet goals
* build strong, healthy relationships

Emotional awareness and communication

Whether you’re having an argument with your spouse or dealing with colleagues at work, your emotions influence the communication process. Over 95% of communication is nonverbal and emotionally driven, so the stakes in learning to harness your emotions are high. Say the wrong thing, or miss an emotional cue, and it can do a lot of damage.
How emotions and feelings affect communication and relationships

Consider the emotional responses of Bernie, Rhonda, and Jim and how they affect their home and work relationships:

Bernie is a kind, steady, and dependable man whose emotional flatness inspired the nickname “Mr. Robot.” In his love relationship with his wife, Bernie remains emotionally uninvolved. His mood is always low key—nothing is too exciting, nothing is worth arguing about. It blindsides him when his wife files for divorce; he never saw it coming. Bernie likes his job, but his flatness has hurt his ability to advance. His bosses can’t imagine him motivating others.

Rhonda works hard at her marriage. Attractive, caring, and hard-working, she takes everything seriously and seldom complains or criticizes. But her lack of spontaneity, humor, and playfulness is taking its toll, as her husband contemplates romantic involvements with other women. Rhonda’s seriousness also limits her popularity at work. Her coworkers tend to forget that she is there.

Jim is admired for his kindness and generosity. Only his family knows of his extremely short fuse. After an unprovoked verbal outburst, Jim is predictably apologetic. When people tell Jim’s wife how lucky she is to have such a wonderful husband, she bites her lip, aware of how she and their children suffer in their relationship with him. His temper also keeps him from working well with others and has limited his choice of jobs.

Like misfiring pistons, Bernie, Rhonda and Jim are incapable of connecting with their strong emotions—the tools they need to communicate with themselves and others. They do not experience the full range of core emotions, or gut feelings.
Evaluating your emotional awareness

Although emotional awareness is the basis of emotional health, good communication, and solid relationships, many people remain relatively unacquainted with their core emotional experience. It is surprising how few people can easily answer the question: “What are you experiencing emotionally?”
Emotional awareness involves two basic abilities:

* The ability to recognize your moment-to-moment emotional experience
* The ability to manage all of your feelings appropriately

What is my level of emotional awareness?

Ask yourself the following questions. If you can answer “yes” to most of the questions, congratulations! If not, you may want to work on raising your emotional awareness:

* Can you tolerate strong feelings, including anger, sadness, fear, disgust, and joy?
* Do you feel your emotions in your body? If you are sad or mad, do you experience physical sensations in places like your stomach and chest?
* Are you comfortable with all of your emotions? No one chooses to be angry, sad or frightened, but if you are, is it OK?
* Do you pay attention to your emotions and use them to guide your decisions?
* Are you comfortable talking about your emotions? Do you communicate your feelings honestly?
* Do your emotions capture the attention of others? Do others know what you feel? Are you comfortable with their knowing?
* Are you sensitive to the emotions of others?

Unhealthy ways of dealing with emotions and feelings

We are all born with a capacity to freely experience the full range of human emotions—including joy, anger, sadness, and fear. Yet many people are disconnected from some or all of their feelings. By trying to avoid pain and discomfort, their emotions have become distorted, displaced, and stifled. You lose touch with your emotions when you attempt to control them, rather than experience them.
Ways of avoiding strong emotions and feelings

* Distracting yourself with obsessive thoughts, escapist fantasies, mindless entertainment, and addictive behaviors in order to avoid emotions you fear or dislike. Watching television for hours, playing computer games, and surfing the Internet are common ways of avoiding dealing with feelings.
* Sticking with one emotional response that you feel comfortable with, no matter what the situation calls for. For example: constantly joking around to cover up insecurities or getting angry all the time to avoid feeling frightened and sad.
* Shutting down or shutting out intense emotions. If you feel overwhelmed by your emotions, you may cope by numbing yourself. You may feel completely disconnected from your emotions, like you no longer have feelings at all.

The consequences of avoiding emotions and feelings

* You lose the good, along with the bad. You either feel your emotions or you don’t. When you shut down negative feeling like anger, fear, or sadness, you also shut down your ability to experience positive feelings such as joy, love, and happiness.
* It’s exhausting. You can distort and numb emotions, but you can’t eliminate them entirely. It takes a lot of energy to avoid having an authentic emotional experience and keep your feelings suppressed. The effort leaves you stressed and drained.
* It damages your relationships. The more you distance yourself from your feelings, the more distant you become from others, as well as yourself. You lose the ability to build strong relationships and communicate effectively, both of which depend on being in touch with your emotions.

You can’t manage emotions until you know how to manage stress

The ability to manage stress is a prerequisite for emotional awareness. Raising your emotional awareness and emotional intelligence begins with the question: "What kinds of sensory input instantly make me feel relaxed, safe, calm, and focused?" Knowing the answer is especially important for people who have had overwhelming emotional experiences as a child. Once you have a safety net in place and know how to make yourself feel good quickly and dependably, you can begin to explore the emotions that seem disagreeable or frightening. The key to coping with strong emotions is knowing that you control of them–not the other way around.

The ability to quickly reduce stress allows you to safely face strong emotions, secure in your ability to regulate your feelings and behave appropriately. When you know how to maintain a relaxed, energized state of awareness—even when something upsetting happens—you can remain emotionally available and engaged.