Mental Health Awareness Week — How to Manage Stress at Work

Work and stress. Traditionally, the two go hand in hand but there are ways to manage those more intense periods of life. Here at White October we enjoy what we do, really enjoy it, but of course this doesn’t mean the job in hand doesn’t have times of stress, or that our home lives are suddenly easy breezy. This week is Mental Health Awareness Week, and this year their focus is on stress. Just a week ago I attended a training day in London with the incredible charity Mind on how to manage mental health in the workplace, and I wanted to share with you all on what I learned about stress: how to notice its early signs and how to manage it.

In essence, early signs of stress are significant changes in behaviour. For example, if a colleague is usually upbeat and bouncy in the morning but you notice a difference in their pattern of behaviour, and they start coming in a much lower mood with a slack posture, it’s worth reaching out and asking how they are. If you don’t feel comfortable with that, raise your concern with your resident Mental Health First Aider or someone who is championing wellbeing in your company. In a team environment you need to be prepared to look out for one another, as sometimes the person struggling won’t recognise their own symptoms apart from thinking it’s just “regular stress” that can be brushed under the carpet.

To give you an idea on how important it is to be able to manage, Mind states that stress is the mid-zone between pressure and a clinically significant mental health problem such as anxiety and/or depression. Additionally, to remain in a state of stress can have devastating consequences on the body as the condition culminates in physical changes including muscle tension, sweating and a rise in blood pressure, blood sugar and heart rate.

Stress is the primal response of ‘fight or flight’ and originates from when we were confronted with predators whilst trying to hunt for our own food. Prolonged stress directly correlates to an increase of risk of having a stroke or a coronary, not to mention its link with various types of cancer. In terms of the business, if stress at work isn’t managed early it can have dramatically negative consequences that lead to an employee engaging in presenteeism and then being off work sick for what can be weeks on end, resulting in a substantial loss of productivity for the company.

I know all of this might sound quite scary but managing stress early on can be pure and simple:

• Exercise is essential and if you can combine it with fresh air, even better. A regular routine of exercise you enjoy increases endorphins (happy hormones) and lowers cortisol (the stress hormone), as well as improving sleep and confidence.
• Listening to music you enjoy can instantly reduce levels of stress, especially if it is of a low tempo and instrumental.
• Practicing mindfulness and focusing on deep breathing activates relaxation and therefore calms the fight or flight feeling that stress induces.
• Laughter is the best medicine. Whether it’s watching your favourite comedy in your lunch break or sending a hilarious GIF in Slack, laughing (especially with the people around you) can do absolute wonders when it comes to stress relief.

So, I think we can all agree that managing our stress levels and those of our colleagues is super important! Talk, smile and move with those in your office. A problem shared is a problem halved, so if you feel as though you can share your issues with a coworker you can trust and confide in, please do so. Stress happens but together we can manage it as a team; we’re here for each other and it’s #TimeToTalk.

© Mind. This information is published in full at mind.org.uk