It’s almost impossible to get away from work-related stress. Even if you love your job, you will face situations that will trigger you and make you feel uneasy. Sometimes the triggers are clear enough for you to identify them, while at other times they are too complex to figure out right away. They can also be an accumulation of various smaller triggers that you haven’t even paid attention to.
Whatever the cause, it’s important to learn how to deal with work-related stress. There are various techniques for relieving it so that you can go back to work and do your job properly.
Determine the Cause
One of the most important methods for dealing with stress is determining what is causing it. Looking at your job, you need to figure out whether it’s the work that’s stressing you out or it’s something else.
We all have behavioral patterns and coping mechanisms that we tend to apply to similar situations. It’s crucial to understand whether it’s a particular aspect of your job that’s triggering you or if it’s you that is applying a familiar coping mechanism to the wrong situation. If you don’t know how to deal with stress in general, that’s where you need to start.
You need to make a distinction between what you feel and what caused it. Work can make people stressed in various ways, especially if it’s their first job. Some people have trouble taking up new responsibilities, while others feel insecure about whether they’re good enough for the job.
To deal with the stress, it’s crucial to be able to separate your work from your daily life as much as you can.
Get Rid of the “What If?”
“What if?” is a question that is one of the largest causes of stress and anxiety. If you wake up and start asking yourself various what-if questions before you go to work, you’ll create a trigger for stress before you’ve even got the chance to face one.
When facing stress, it’s crucial to focus on concrete issues and not hypothetical situations. The only proper answer to the question “What if?” is “So what.” Give yourself that answer and move on to face the real issues.
Face the Situation That Triggers You
When you put hypothetical fears aside, you’ll be able to face the real problems more clearly.
Let’s say that you’ve come to work and you’ve realized that you’ve messed up a part of a big project. The worst thing to do is to start making excuses in your head, such as trying to make yourself believe that the mistake isn’t so bad or that no one will notice that it happened. This kind of defense mechanism leads to rumination—more and more thoughts that will only increase your stress.
What you should do instead is think of the worst-case scenario. What is the worst that could happen? Your boss might scold you. Your co-workers might be irritated with you. It might be uncomfortable for a while. Then, it will stop being uncomfortable.
When you realize that the world isn’t going to end, you can get down to planning how to fix the issue. Quite often, what actually happens is much less terrible than what we imagine it might be.
Other Ways To Deal With Stress
When it comes to stress, you need to be proactive. Exercise is one of the best ways to relieve tension. If you don’t feel like jogging or going to the gym, you can try meditation and breathing exercises.
One of the most common exercises for relieving tension is progressive muscle relaxation. It works by tensing your muscles, breathing in deep, and then relaxing the muscles slowly as you breathe out.
Work both on your mind and your body, and you’ll learn how to relieve stress and face different work-related issues with a clear head.
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