Work-Related Stress: Causes & How To Manage It

These days the percentages of people suffering from work-related stress is quite high.  Stress develops when you feel overwhelmed or feel unable to cope with the situation.  (for quick reading scroll down to the bottom of this blog to find out my 6 steps to help you manage stress)

There are two types of stresses; positive and negative stress. Positive stress is good for us, as it gets us out of bed in the morning, it motivates us to do things, achieve goals either work related or personal.  On the other hand, negative stress can create a lot of negative feelings and emotions.
 
Letting stress build up by taking on too much on or ignoring how tired you feel, can turn your stress into a non-functional stress and this can be harmful to you.
 
This will result in you feeling physically exhausted.  You may find aches and pains begin and sometimes it is possible to contract illnesses like high blood pressure, diabetes or heart problems when stress is extreme.  This kind of stress can also affect your sleep and appetite
 
Emotionally and mentally you can start to feel drained.  It is possible that you may feel low and sad and maybe irritable, angry and frustrated easily.  

It is important to be aware of which circumstances and what factors are contributing towards increasing your stress levels.   I have outlined various contributors you may recognise if you have work related stress.

Here are some work-related stress contributors:

• Too much work: Due to high level roles or understaffing
• Lack of support: Due to everyone being under pressure to help others or non-cooperative team or team members. 
• Bullying and Harassment: If you are being bullying or harassed due to various reasons
• Unfairness and Favoritism: Sometimes this can take place or may be it may seem like that is happening but still it could cause a lot of stress
• Unrealistic Targets: Targets can feel unrealistic do many reasons, this needs to be discussed with the manager and ask for help
• Issues with work-colleagues: Competition or some sort of disagreement may cause issues with work colleagues which can impact the working environment
• Personal issues adding stress at work: You may find it hard to concentrate at work when you have a lot going on in your personal life. 
• Feeling of being inadequate: This can happen if you are in new employment or have changed your job role.  You may worry about asking for more support or training
• Lack of confidence and Low Self-esteem: Although you know your job role you may not feel confident in carrying it out. You may be worried about asking for help because you feel you might get “found out”.  You may worry about what others might think and say about you, feeling you might come across as a failure or not good enough.

You may recognize one or more of these stresses as being present in your job.  To enable you to manage your stress effectively, try to take steps on daily basis to relieve your stress, so that it does not build up.
 
As it can be difficult to think how to manage stress when you are going through it, I have outlined 6 steps to help you.  Print out this blog if you think it will help and keep it hand for times when you need it.

6 Steps to manage your stress levels:

• Exercising daily - Go to the gym, play sports or go to exercise classes e.g. yoga, Zumba, Pilates.  Choose something that suits you and that you enjoy.
• Manage our time effectively – Learning time management skills.
• Practicing meditation or mindfulness – By joining groups in your area of find online tools if you prefer to practice at home.  You will find free videos on YouTube and other mobile apps offer free meditation and mindfulness.
• Take time out with a well deserved rest – your mind and body needs rest to function effectively.  Try to schedule some rest time in your week.
• Communicate your thoughts and feelings – voicing your concerns and asking for help is very important to manage stressful feelings.
• Learning to say ‘No”– Instead of trying to please everyone, listen to your body and mind and only take on what you can manage

​In summary, when managing your work related stress, it is about learning to recognise it first of all and then learning to manage your stress by various ways including communicating your thoughts and feelings and asking for help.
 
I would love to help you to develop the techniques to allow you to manage your work related stress.  Please use the Contact tab to get in touch if you would like more information. 

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