Job Stress Tips

Job Stress Tips: Quick ways to Relieve Job Stress 1. GET A LIFE/KEEP A LIFE Make sure you get and keep mental and physical activities in your life that you enjoy. Make these pastimes separate and apart from work. The shear child-like pleasure that a person gets from contact with close friends or relatives, a runners high, athletic competition, volunteering in areas that help others or in areas of special interest (avocations) balance life. It reminds us to keep work in its important but proper place. 2. RAISE IMPERFECTION TO AN ART FORM (SILLY MISTAKES) Make an intentional, silly, harmless mistake everyday. Sounds crazy, but in a fast paced, pressurized, perfectionistic world, an intentional silly, harmless mistake everyday reminds yourself that you are imperfect. The world can survive your mistakes, and more importantly, you can as well. Make imperfection an art form in your daily mistakes. Challenge your creativity and set your imagination free, and most of all, enjoy it. 3. ANYBODY OUT THERE? Its easy to get lost in your job especially in a fast paced technical workplace. Many people work in isolation. They encounter real problems that someone else may have solved already. You dont have to reinvent the wheel. Dont work in a vacuum. Get together formally in groups or informally with co-workers and colleagues. You can identify problems and exchange solutions and strategies. Share the load, and youll find you lighten the burden. 4. CHAIRperson On the go, moving and working faster than a speeding bullet? Dont worry, your job stress will wait for you. Keep a small pad and pen with you at all times. Whenever you encounter something that causes you job stress, write it down (keywords are enough if it will jog your memory), but defer you reaction. Later, in a quiet place, either at home or at work, sit in a chair and meditate for 5 to 15 minutes on your accumulated job stresses for that day. Intensify your thoughts and reactions, especially your feelings. This is a once a day assignment. The goal is to concentrate your job stress of an entire day into an intense period of time. You begin learning to confine job stress into periods of time in which you can give it your full attention. Its your job stress workout similar to your physical, mental and social exercise. Keep a log if you like and write down your reactions to your particular job stress. You will have a record to see how you stress ebbs and flows over time. 5. REAL OR MEMOREX? – Know your own individualized reactions to job stress. Ask the people who know you the best to describe in detail what you do when under job stress. The theory goes that It takes one to know one, or in other words, knowing the problem is the first step to solving the problem. Eastern thought teaches a person to master his own problems by owning them. Once you can produce the symptom on command, you have the power to control it. Start and stop it whenever you want. By mimicking the symptoms on purpose and practicing them, see if you can fool those closest to you. Are you really feeling stressed or are you empowering yourself and taking control over your symptoms? 6. TAKING HOME TO WORK Is your job stress really being caused by the job or are you merely taking stresses from home to work? Know the difference so you can know where to spend your problem solving energy. 7. JOB STRESS IS REAL AND CAN BE DANGEROUS. The best medicine is to take care of your self. Dont let problems control you. If you cannot come up with a strategy to effectively deal with your job stress or problem, get professional counseling. Find a counselor and/or physician who can help you. Joe Pastore, Manager JSH