6 effective ways to reduce stress at work

Work can be a stressful place. Expectations are higher than ever before and the need to do ‘more’ with ‘less’ is a given. But there are a lot of easy ways to impact your stress level by improving the way that you take care of yourself. Taking care of yourself is imperative if you want to combat stress in your everyday life.

Let`s take a look at some of these easy de-stressors to add to your everyday life and prepared you to deal with the next stressor that comes your way.

1. Exercise

For a start, exercise can help you reducing your stress level. There are several reasons for why exercise can help you better deal with stress as well. First, exercise can lead to a release of endorphins, or ‘feel-good’ chemicals into the bloodstream. These chemicals have the effect of relaxing the body and are associated with feelings of pleasure. Second, research shows that exercise may help the brain to better deal with stress. People who exercise regularly are proven to have lower anxiety and depression rates than people who don’t. Third, there is some evidence that exercise is a way for your body to practice responding to stress.

2. Healthy eating

Besides, providing your body with appropriate nutrition is important for making the body run efficiently – including the body’s ability to respond to stress. One important step is to keep your blood sugar at an even level throughout the day. Low blood sugar can lead to anxiety and irritability, while high blood sugar will lead to a crash that can result in low energy and fatigue. Following are some general tips for healthy eating. Keep your eating plan simple so that it is easy to follow. Think about how you eat as well. If you eat too fast, eat beyond the point of satisfaction, or eat on the run, you are engaging in poor eating habits. Instead, try to eat with other people, or chew your food thoroughly and slowly.

3. Nutritional Tips

In addition to the information above, there are some more things you can do to improve your nutrition and overall health. They include:

• Drinking at least eight glasses of water per day. Our bodies are about 75% water and we need it to keep our systems running properly.

• Avoid caffeinated beverages or take them in moderation.

• Eat whole grains and avoid simple carbohydrates.

• Avoid unhealthy fats such as saturated fats and trans fats.

• Eat lean protein such as fish, poultry, and vegetable proteins.

• Add calcium and Vitamin D to keep bones strong.

• Avoid processed or pre-packaged foods that are full of additives and preservatives.

• Drink alcohol in moderation.

• Eliminate nicotine.

4. Creating a Schedule

If you are someone who feels that schedules are restrictive, then you haven’t yet learned the power that they can provide. We live in a world where there is always something jockeying for our attention and our time. For you to be able to fit in the things that are important to you, a schedule is an important tool. It allows you to block out segments of time and assign them to a specific activity.

At work, a schedule offers additional benefits because it allows you to: Ensure you’ve allotted time for all of your necessary tasks and functions, and cut off unproductive interruptions by referring to it. It also let you limit meetings to their scheduled time rather than letting them go on until people feel like leaving. And best of all, it allows you allot time for yourself for breaks.

5. Employees listen: Forget perfection!

Those of us who strive for perfection in everything we do are asking for stress. Nothing will ever be completely perfect, and by putting unrealistic pressure on ourselves or others, we are guaranteeing that we will experience or inflict stress.

6. Take responsibility for your commitments

Are you always running late to work? Do you tend to oversleep or forget things? Make a commitment to yourself to take the actions necessary to correct these stress-causing behaviors. Buy a second alarm clock, adapt a calendar system that works for you, and plan extra time for completing tasks or getting to appointments. Good luck with all that!

If you are interested in finding more helpful stress catalyzers, take a look at the book “Managing Stress” written by MTD Training.

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