Wednesday, June 9, 2004

Handle stress before it handles you

By GREGORY SMITH
Special to the Citizen

Most people today are aware of the problems that stress can cause. This includes both physical ailments such as high blood pressure, heart attack, ulcers, premature aging as well as mental illness such as depression and anxiety.

People usually tend to think of stress primarily in terms of negative stress: a job you dislike, an unreasonable supervisor, unrealistic demands, etc. This is the stress that can hurt the most.

A job you enjoy and find fulfilling, even though stressful, can provide a form of “positive stress.” However, if carried to extremes, even positive stress can overwhelm you.

Some form of stress is usually present in any job. How you approach and handle that stress can make a difference in how much it impacts your life. Consider these tips to help you deal with stress in your workplace.

Realize it is impossible to get everything done. A trap many people fall into is thinking they can do it all. This attitude kills lots of people. Decide on what is important and let the rest wait.

Remember that you have a life outside the job. Working late or on the weekend occasionally can be productive. You can work without the usual interruptions, and the feeling of being “caught up” can be very positive. However, the stress of working every night or weekend without time off to relax can easily become a negative stress.

Take care of your body. A poor physical condition can make it harder to cope with a stressful work situation. Regular exercise can help release tension as well as tone your muscles. At the office, take a few minutes several times a day to let your body relax. Try a relaxation exercise: concentrate on relaxing one area of the body at a time until the entire body is relaxed. This only takes a few minutes, is good for your health, and can help you be more productive.

Stagger your tasks. Perform some routine task as a break from a more demanding project. Also, schedule the more demanding projects for the time of day when you feel at your best mentally and physically.

Take time to be efficient. The old adage, “Haste makes waste,” may be more true than we like to admit. Hurry can produce tension and may not necessarily result in the completion of a job more quickly. In addition, hurry can result in errors and the additional time and energy needed to correct them increases your stress.

Take a day off. When you feel you have reached the end of your rope and the knot is slipping from your hands, take a day off. An occasional personal day to relax and do nothing, or do some special personal project that you have put off, can help you return to work the next day rested and energized.

Know how you work. Do you work best when your office and desk are organized? An acquaintance knows that she needs an organized desk and work area to be at her most productive, so she spends a few minutes each day in “maintenance” of her work area. Do you work best in silence or do you like to have music from a radio in the background? Discover what helps you work with the least stress.

Do something. Do you sometimes feel so overwhelmed by the amount of work before you that you find it difficult to decide where to even start? This stress can rob you of energy and can result in a totally non-productive day. Rather than do nothing out of frustration, pick one task and work on it. If you waste the day on indecision, you increase your stress level even more.

Deal with frustration one piece at a time. It can be difficult to deal with several areas of frustration at the same time, so select one area and decide how to deal with the stress in that area. Once you have accomplished that goal, then deal with another area.

Determine the source of your stress. Is your stress really from the demands of the job, or from how you feel about those demands? Is the stress from a big project that you enjoy despite the demands it places on you, or the little boring routines that you dislike but are a necessary part of the job. Determining the source of your stress can be a first step toward learning to deal with that stress.

[Gregory P. Smith shows businesses how to build productive and profitable work environments that attract, keep and motivate their workforce. He speaks at conferences and is the President of a management consulting firm called Chart Your Course International located in Conyers, Georgia. Phone him at (770)860-9464 or send an email at greg@chartcourse.com. More information and articles are available at www.ChartCourse.com.]