Are You Stressed at Work? Here are 10 Tips to Keep Yourself Calm!
Everyone comes across periods when anxiety goes off the scale, things are sort of falling apart and it seems like you have a million tasks with impending deadlines. If that’s familiar to you, it’s time to break the vicious circle and start to enjoy your work and your life!
Here are 10 practical tips that are proven effective by Collabio team’s experience! They will help with stress that is not only caused by objective reasons such as low salary or unhealthy relationships with colleagues. In those cases, deal with the causes first.
Part 1. Stress-Free Habits
For your convenience, we divided the list into two parts. This part will tell you what habits create a calm and pleasant environment and reduces stress in general. Sleeping well and focusing on positive things goes a long way, but how does an individual form these habits?
#1. Forget about Screens in the Evening
We all like scrolling our friends’ updates on Facebook or discovering interesting articles before going to sleep. However, this is a bad idea due to two reasons:
- The Screen’s blue light suppresses melatonin that controls the sleep-wake cycle. Your brain will consider it’s still day and you will feel stressed and tired in the morning.
- Looking through the news feed makes your mind psychologically engaged in what you read, so it will be hard to sleep well after.
And this is the same for e-books as well! Try falling asleep without gadgets at least once and you’ll see the effect. This may be hard if you’ve been doing it for long time. In this case, replace screen time with something else, for example, listen to calm ambient music or think of nature. Keep in mind that thinking about office issues will only harm your sleep, as your brain will get stuck on that and continue processing throughout the night. We recommend to get distracted by thoughts of something pacifying, not related to problems — choose what you like: sea, mountains, or forest…
#2. Use Night Mode
We understand that habits are strongly settled in people’s heads and they cannot be easily changed. Let’s say you can’t sleep without “liking” a few photos on socials. Luckily for you, many applications have a night mode of user interface! This dark mode blocks blue light, so you can do your favorite pre-sleep rituals and still enjoy sweet dreams.
Your brain won’t perceive screen light as daylight and your brain will have a chance to have good rest.
#3. Turn Off the Light
This solution is obvious yet not everyone does that! Surprisingly, there are many stimulates. The light at night activates your brain, indicating that something is going wrong. It can be the light of a night lamp or an unmuted light from another room, the light of cars passing on the street or lanterns or even a blinking indicator on a USB flash drive plugged into your computer!
Close curtains or wear a sleep mask to cope with unwanted lights during the night time.
#4. Turn Off Your Wi-Fi at Night
We’re talking not about your router but about all the gadgets. In the context of globalisation, keeping in touch with people all around the world, means getting emails and messages even at night. Try to turn off the Wi-Fi connection on your phone before going to sleep or set a scheduled “Do not disturb” mode.
However, if you are afraid to miss any calls in case of emergencies, turn off only your Internet connection, that way you won’t miss anything important!
Part 2. Dealing with Stressful Situations at Work
We hope that the previous part has led you to some useful insights. To be ready to come across any issue with a calm face is an excellent skill. Being able to reduce the overall stress level really helps, but even the calmest person can get tired of tons of difficulties arising at the same time. Here’s what to do in such a case:
#5. Have an Urgent 5-Minute Break
Do you feel like your brain is about to explode? Take a break! This is a very easy tip that works well.
- Set a timer for five minutes and close your laptop or snooze your PC. Put mobile gadgets away.
- Do nothing! Think of something abstract or meditate for a few minutes. Concentrate on breathing steadily.
- If you are overwhelmed with energy and can’t just sit calmly, do some physical exercises.
That’s it! The stress level will decrease! Also, this slight pause will help your brain recharge and get a chance to make reasonable and balanced decisions. It’s always better than acting in a rush, which commonly only causes more issues.
#6. Track Your Stress Triggers
Start a journal (or a note in Collabio ;) to identify what causes your stressful states. Write down:
- all situations creating the most stress for you,
- and your solutions/responses to them.
This will help to identify what needs your attention and to avoid those sharp corners next time. However, if you cannot get around them, develop healthy responses to such situations.
#7. Establish Boundaries
Work-life boundaries often become smaller when one becomes completely immersed in a project. Being available 24/7 contributes to productivity yet brings burnout closer. Set your personal boundaries by creating simple rules:
- Check your email only during work hours.
- Put your phone away for dinner.
- Spend your evenings with family and friends and forget about business issues.
- Deal with the issues, that arise after business hours on the next business day.
If your stress is caused by this type of a work-life conflict, strict boundaries will help to get rid of this stress in a week!
#8. Use Vacation to Recharge
Even the most productive person in the world can’t perform well infinitely. Accumulated stress won’t disappear with a wave of a magic wand, so you should dedicate some time to recharging with positive energy. Switch off from work on a vacation (even if you are going to spend this week or two in your home city) it will help you to return to the initial pre-stress levels.
- Think about how much time is necessary for you to recharge.
- Focus on relaxation and don’t switch to work-related activities.
- If you still need to answer emails or talk to colleagues on vacation, dedicate a specific time for that.
Read more about how to combine vacation and team work in this article!
#9. Talk to The Team Leader
If you’re a team leader, then talk to your manager or director to whom you report. Employees’ burnout is the last thing any boss would like to see at work. So, should you feel that the level of stress you’re experiencing is too high, have an open conversation with your supervisor.
- Outline the main causes of your stress. Make sure you are not presenting a list of complaints.
- Create a plan for managing these points, that would lead to a better performance.
- Talk about wellness events or other resources provided by the employer.
- Finally, get support from your supervisor to feel more confident.
Who knows, the company may want to contribute to the improvement of your skills (for example, with the help of online courses) or to hire one more employee, especially if the volume of tasks is really enormous.
#10. Get Support from Colleagues
Some companies have an in-house psychologists or collaborate with psychological aid services. At others, HR departments are responsible for keeping a cozy and friendly environment at the workplace. HR managers are often keen in psychology and may offer you stress management techniques or resources.
Also, you can talk to your team which is interested in your productivity and will be eager to help you cope with stressors. These people are always on your side! Even the fact of talking to someone may be helpful, you might find out that more people are dealing with the same issues and you won’t feel so alone. It’s always easier to come through difficulties together with friendly support!
