Seeking Help From Others

I want to talk about how to reduce stress by seeking helps from others including people in the work and people who can make you feel better.

I understand that sometimes you are too bashful to ask your coworkers to help with your work and sometimes your self-esteem stops you to even speak those out to a close friend or family member. However, you should also understand that there is no shame to ask your coworkers for help or ask for your manager to reallocate the workload. You should always know your limit and your capacity. If you think that you can not adequate for the assigning amount of work, speak it up with your team members or leaders. It is better to mention it in advance than to submit a poor job in the end.

My Experience

I had an in-class activity in one of my CSE course recently. We grouped in three people to finish a set of questions towards programming.

At first, because of lack of trust and understanding, we agreed that each one of us was responsible for one set of questions. I was the first one to do those questions. The professor present the questions on the screen and asked us to fill in the answer in a piece of answer sheet. The time is really limited and it was really stressful when the clock was counting down. I finished the questions with merely several sentences for each questions. It was definitely not a good experience.

In the following sets of questions, we tried to work together. When one was writing the first question, others started thinking about the second question and were ready for writing down the answer for the second question. We finally finished the questions by relaying from one person to another.Although it was still not enough time, I did not to take too much responsibility and stress all by myself.

This experience made me understand the power of group working and its impact on stress management.

Suggestions

I have come up with several suggestions relating with seeking help from others in stress management.

1. Delegate responsibility and seek help from the coworkers if the workload is beyond your capacity.
2. Speak up with your managers, find out the problems and seek for solutions.
3. Tell your stressors and get comfort or advice from your close friend and family member.

Practice

I have applied this method in my study by talking with one of my close friend about the stressors and seeking for comfort. I told her about the stress of three incoming exams in the following week and the worry of not having enough time to prepare the exams. Although she was unexpected that I talked those with her, she still gave me some comfort by affirming the work I had done in those weeks and suggesting me to take actions instead of thinking too far ahead. Those suggestions involves the techniques that I mentioned in my precious blog posts. I felt so much better after I talked to her. Although I still need to prepare for my exams and the time is still limited. I feel that I did learn most of staff that I should be capable with and I might not be afraid of those exams. I am confident and relieved.

I think that seeking help from others is an effective way, especially, it may reduce stress by eliminating the stressors.

Next Step

In my next blog post, I would like to talk about how to relieve stress by self management. I will also come up with a list of effective methods that I have tired in the past six blog posts to help you with stress management.