In today’s high pressure working environments stress is almost inevitable. Increasing workloads paired with longer working hours create the perfect habitat for stress to breed. Piled on top of that is the increase in advancing technologies and you have yourself an uncontrollable time bomb waiting to explode. But stress isn’t something that should be ignored or avoided, it’s an issue that needs to be dealt with and controlled. Here we’ve created some simply tips and tricks to help you breeze through your working day and reduce stress:
- Take a break – no, we don’t mean swanning off to the Maldives in your lunch hour (although that would cure all stresses!) We mean taking a few minutes to step away from your desk or a project and take a breather. Sitting starring at a problem for hours on end won’t help you solve it any faster. However taking a few minutes away from it will help you look at it with fresh eyes.
- Deep breaths – when you feel yourself getting stressed take a few deep breaths. Sit with your back straight and put your hands on your stomach, feel it rise with each breath and feel your stresses melt away on each exhalation.
- Prioritise – When you feel your workload is getting too much take a few minutes to priorities your work. Write a list starting with the most important. You can’t do everything at once and taking a step by step approach will help you get thing done without feeling swamped.
- Make time in the evening to switch off – this means turning off your laptop and mobile phone and not responding to emails late at night. It’s important for you to take some ‘you’ time each day. It reboots and refreshes you for the next day.
- Get Healthy – as tempting as it may be to rely on a few glasses of wine in the evening or a packet of cigarettes during the day it’s definitely not the best way to relieve long term stress. Your body won’t thank you long term. What would help is eating well, exercising and making sure you get enough sleep. You’ll be able to handle stressful situations a lot better if you’re feeling your best.
- Ask for help – You would be thrown out of a job for talking to colleagues and managers about stress. It’s more than likely that if you’re feeling the pressure then others are too. It can help just knowing that others are feeling the same way. You can build a support networks and help one another out.
If stress isn’t dealt with properly it can lead to serious health problems in the futures and you may need to take large periods of time off work. Your employer doesn’t want you to be stressed at work and they definitely don’t want you to take time off sick with an issue that could have been dealt with at the start.
Long term symptoms of stress can include:
- High blood pressure
- Heart disease
- Eczema
- Psoriasis
- Loss of muscle function and structure
- Stiffness & soreness
- Osteoporosis
- Reproductive abnormalities
- Loss of libido
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Inefficient energy use
- Increased fat deposition
- Insulin resistance
- Appetite suppression
- Irritable bowel syndrome
- Eventual immune suppression
By trying to take the above tips to de-stress you may be helping yourself to avoid these illnesses.
If you start to feel like stress is taking a serious toll on you, you may be able to make a claim for stress, against your employer. By seeking expert help from a team of stress claim specialists, you will be able to find out if you are able to claim damages for your suffering.
About the Author:
This article was written by Wai Yi Suen, who is the joint managing director of Beardsells Personal Injury Solicitors. Wai Yi has been working in the personal injury law sector since 1989 and has experience in handling many cases in which she has helped the claimant to get the maximum damages for their suffering.
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