Stop Letting Stress Throw Your Workday into a Tailspin

One of the most well-known phenomena that can negatively affect workplace productivity and quality of life is stress. Sure, it might sound obvious, but too many of us automatically let our stress take the wheel and have a much harder time as a result…and of course, as helpful as modern technology is for work, it also makes this stress much, much easier to accumulate.

Let’s discuss a few strategies to help your entire team (including yourself) spot an incoming spiral and nip it in the bud.

What is Stress, and Why Does It Happen to Us?

Stress is a blanket term for your body’s natural responses to perceived challenges or dangers. That’s it. All stress is just your body and mind trying to prepare you to deal with a situation by dumping a bunch of hormones into the appropriate systems.

Of course, many of the situations we deal with now are very different from what our ancestors encountered. Ug-Tah the homo erectus had to make sure that there was food roasting over the fire and that he wasn’t eaten by a giant hyena. By comparison, our worries range from marital problems to financial concerns to interpersonal friction to the combination of all the little things that go wrong throughout the day.

The big difference, however, is that a stress response could help Ug-Tah fight off Pachycrocuta brevirostris. Its effects are considerably less helpful to someone facing a work deadline.

Stress Impacts Us Physically, Behaviorally, and Psychologically

If you’re dealing with constant, chronic stress, there are many symptoms that can present themselves.

• Physical symptoms include aches, exhaustion, hypertension, digestive issues, chest pains, headaches, sexual dysfunction, and immune system deficits. Some people even experience outbreaks of hives.
• Behavioral symptoms include adopting various coping methods and mechanisms, many of which have their own negative ramifications. These methods often include alcohol use, disordered eating, gambling, compulsivity, and substance abuse.
• Psychological symptoms include overall sadness, depression, irritability, anxiety, and panic attacks.

If stress is allowed to continue unchecked, it can lead to an assortment of health issues involving the immune, digestive, cardiovascular, and reproductive systems.

How to Catch and Mitigate Workplace Stress

Obviously, we should all strive to minimize stress, especially when it triggers life-or-death reactions to much less severe situations. So, how can we do that?

A few key behaviors can help a lot:

1. When a stressful situation arises at work, pause for a minute to take a few deep breaths before you do anything else. This reset can help offset the knee-jerk reaction that leads to more stress.
2. On a related note, taking a break and moving around also helps you process the initial reaction and avoid a surge of stress hormones. It doesn’t have to be a lot, just enough to burn off a little of the extra energy you’ll likely feel.
3. Instead of pushing all your stress aside, allow yourself to feel some of it without letting it take over. In essence, you need to actively choose a productive, positive day despite the stressful circumstances of the moment.
4. Ask yourself how much energy a situation actually warrants you to commit to it. A lot of things we stress ourselves out about simply won’t matter in the near future.
5. Separate the facts of the matter from your feelings surrounding them. Often, we let our emotions fuel our stress without cause. Looking at the situation as it stands can help you avoid catastrophizing.
6. Choose to do something that recenters you. Sometimes, a quick shift is all you need to restore your equilibrium and let a moment of stress pass.

A quick caveat: this assumes your stress and its ramifications are relatively minimal. Many of the stress symptoms we referenced before can easily escalate into dangerous behaviors that seriously harm your overall health and safety. Please reach out to a licensed practitioner for professional help if the above steps don't help or don’t do enough.

Working with the Right Tools Can Help Minimize One Major Stressor

Accucom is here to help keep your business IT from being a source of your team’s stress, as we provide proactive support and assistance with your technology management. While it won’t eliminate all the stress in your office, we can certainly take a chunk of it away. 

Reach out to us at (02) 8825-5555 to learn more about what we can do for you.