Dealing with Stress at Work: What You Need to Know and How to Improve Productivity

In today’s competitive world, it is hard to have the right balance and attain optimum performance. The day does not go as it was planned earlier while having morning tea/coffee.

In your professional or personal life, stress is a fact. All of us experience it. According to a report published on CNBC site, around 60% professionals experience stress three or more days in a week. As per another report, 41% of small entrepreneurs admit that their companies are one of the top stressors.

As an entrepreneur or employee, you may notice a drop in your productivity if you fail to manage your work-associated stress. As per a report of Anxiety and Depression Association of America, 56% of the employees have accepted that anxiety and stress affect their work performance.

What should you know?

A little stress is good for you. It helps you stay energetic, focused, and able to face challenges at the workplace. It keeps you alert to avoid mistakes and accidents. However, too much stress is harmful. It affects you a lot in your personal as well professional life.

As a business owner or employee, your first attempt should know the root causes when you experience anxiety or stress regularly. In personal life, too many expectations, sudden death of a loved one, low income, etc. are core causes. On the other hand, usual causes of workplace stress are as follows:

• Fear of being fired
• Overtime
• Tight deadlines
• Low salary package
• Pressure of performing well at all the time

Apart from the causes, you should be well aware of stress warning signs. With this, managing your stress becomes more comfortable for you. Here are major signs of stress at work:

• Lack of interest in work
• Fatigue
• Sleeping problem
• Stomach issues
• Decrease in sex drive
• Using alcoholic drinks to cope
• Trouble in concentration
• Headaches or muscle tensions

How to beat stress and improve your productivity? 

Here are some useful ways that can help you get over your stress and enhance your productivity:

Train yourself and your employees

Training is essential for a fresher or new employee. With proper training, the employee has sound idea what he or she has to do. Before starting to work on a new project, gather essential information and make your team members aware of that. Train them how to execute the work well within the stated time. You can divide that project in small parts and go to do the next one once you complete the previous one.

Focus more to act than react

Usually, we get stressed when we observe that situations are getting out of control. Due to this feeling, there is an activation of stress hormones. You should find out the aspects of the condition that can help you to have control over it. In general, you have control over your situations and actions, but you have no control over others. So, you should avoid reacting if someone comments on your situation. Instead, you should work on how to get rid of it.

Take small breaks after a period of 20/30 minutes

You know working continuously harms you in many ways. Constant works make you physically and mentally tired. This tiredness leads you to get anxious or stressed. To get rid of such tiredness, you should small breaks frequently. For taking breaks, you don’t need to leave your seat. Just stop doing your work, make your body loose, and place your palm on your eyes.

Have a deep breathing

When you feel you are stressed or you are getting tensed, you need to clear your mind. For this, stop what you are doing and take a deep breath. With this, you feel relaxed a lot.

Customized your workplace

Keep in mind that your workstation influences your performance a lot. Your productivity gets hampered with cluttered or unorganized workplace. You need to organize or make it clutter free. For this, you can clear your desk by removing unnecessary things, placing the required things at proper place, naming things with custom labels, and so on. You can take professional services like iCustomLabel and decorate your employees working space with personalized labels and stickers.

Work on what cause interruptions

In general, emails, phone calls, instant messages, urgent deadlines, etc. make people distracted. You may not control over all these things. However, you can have control over your response. Stop responding to unnecessary phone calls, emails, and messages. You can switch off your phone or mobile data when you have to work on an urgent deadline.  

Have a healthy diet

Our diet has a direct link to our health. And our health is associated with our work performance. So, you need to take care of your eating habits and include only healthy foods in your diet. As far as possible, stay away from fast & processed foods, soft drinks, and alcoholic products. By staying healthy, you can perform better and you will be more productive.

Sleep well

Our body needs proper rest to function well. Therefore, you should never compromise with your sleeping. Have a sound sleep for 6-8 hours to feel fresh and stay productive throughout the day.

Conclusion

To beat your stress and enhance your productive, the tips mentioned above are only indicative. You can use or apply several other things like talking to your seniors or management, going out, having refreshments, etc. to avoid anxiety and feel relaxed. Being fresh and feeling relaxed helps you to attain what you want at your work.

Guest post courtesy of Smith Willas