Getting stressed at work isn’t anything new. In fact, it’s a part of our everyday life nowadays. Stress has this unique ability of killing productivity, motivation and the will of getting up in the morning to get to office in a matter of hours.
What’s even worse, it doesn’t last for a day and go away most of the time. In you don’t do something about it, it’s going to get you into unnecessary trouble that you wouldn’t get into otherwise, because your work suffers.
Here are a few solid tips that will help fight back stress at work and help you rehabilitate after those ugly encounters, whatever they might be.
Sports
I didn’t believe this until I tried it myself. It really does work. The choice is yours when picking the right physical activity for yourself, but I personally prefer boxing. Ever had the feeling of just wanting to strangle one of your clients or teammates because they were completely wrong, but arrogant enough never to actually admit it? That’s what I’m talking about.
There is a whole lot of satisfaction in beating the crap out of the boxing bag, while imagining it to be the person who caused you so much trouble. Try it out, you will be surprised how good you feel after you have done it and it will be much easier to communicate with that person the next day.
Entertainment
Sometimes it’s just no use thinking about the same matter over and over and over again. Things aren’t going to change for the better just because you keep thinking about them and no solutions are going to appear out of the blue.
The more you crank your head about this, the more stressed you get in the end. And even after a solution is found at long last, you still feel empty and are left with no strength.
Entertainment in all of its forms (movies, music, gaming, dancing etc.) can work wonders at times like these. While different people have different preferences, it’s hard to find somebody who doesn’t like some sort of entertainment be it a movie with their favorite actor in the cinema or a great classical music concert.
Entertainment will help get your mind off the seemingly unsolvable problems at work and give your brain a few precious hours of relaxation. Just pick your favorite form of entertainment, get down to it, sit back, relax and enjoy life for that time. Issues will still be there the next day, but you will be in a much better shape and hopefully see things in a different light, which will help you find an approach that you failed to see before.
Having someone to hear you out
This might seem like a minor thing, but sometimes what you really need is not an advice or a way out. You just need a friend to hear you out. Just talking about your own stuff with him or her will grant you relief from those small things that added up gradually during time and are waiting to burst out.
Often times, talking about problems or hearing another person’s opinion can help you see stuff that you didn’t see before, or understand things that are very clear to somebody else, but didn’t seem so clear to you just a few hours ago.
The sea and the beach
If you live somewhere close to the sea (or the ocean for that matter), you might just want to take a day off work and go to the beach, alone. Water has this unique ability of washing away your worries and stress, just by its insanely strong presence.
A matured human body consists of 60% water, so the sea is like your gigantic ancestor who will always offer a hand when you need it. A 30 minute walk on the beach can be worth hours of relaxation. They say time heals all the wounds, well, they also say that water can pierce stone, in time.
Take short breaks
This is a very minor thing, which can help a lot. Ever wondered why students have classes that last around 1 hour 30 minutes max? That’s because our brain can stay concentrated on a certain thing no more than that. After this time, your brain stops using its full capacity, which leads to mistakes, errors and ultimately, stress.
It’s no good to sit at your desk for hours on end if you aren’t actually getting work done. Taking regular short breaks can help ease up the load on your brain and help fight difficulties and stress. As little as 5-10 minutes are enough to do the trick.
Fighting stress isn’t easy, but it isn’t that hard either, if you know what to do and actually do something about it. Using a number of the above mentioned examples can help you out a lot and they really do work.
Remember that you aren’t alone. We live in a world that is full of stress and we need to learn to deal with it as effectively as we can.
If you are still feeling miserable, maybe knowing that none of us (even me sadly) won’t make it out of this world alive, will help you a bit. We are all slowly floating on a tiny spec in the Endless Space as time flies by. Don’t let a bad day make you feel like you have a bad life -)
