Anxiety and stress at your workplace are common. The pressure you face throughout the day is responsible for everything. It could be a number of things that could be the reason for making you anxious like job insecurity, high pressure, conflict with your boss or coworkers, and also technology-related stress like spending long hours in front of a computer or laptop.
Ignoring your work due to the high pressure leads to more stress. Therefore you should focus on the solutions that work.
Below are the 16 ways to reduce stress and anxiety at your workplace.
How To Reduce Stress And Anxiety
1. Prevent Eye Strain
Some indirect factors are also the reason for your stress and headaches. If you are not taking care of your eyes, you will soon be tired and unable to complete your daily tasks.
So better to keep these things in mind:
- Set your laptop or computer 20 to 26 inches away from the eyes.
- Buy eyeglasses which are specially made for computer users.
- Keep your computer display light as low as possible. This way, you consume less artificial lighting.
2. Planning & Deadlines
If you want to reduce stress, making a to-do list on paper often reduces your stress at work. Break down your work into small chunks: short, medium, and long-term.
Writing down the plans on paper helps you to remember important tasks.
Set clear, achievable, measurable goals to motivate yourself. This practice helps you to work efficiently and smartly.
3. Don’t Overcommit
Commitment makes you punctual. But overcommitment puts you in trouble at your workplace. It’s better to ask for enough time to complete your task than to apologize later.
And luckily if you finish your job before your given deadline, you might be praised and it will reduce stress.
4. Avoid Office Politics
One of the crucial tips to reduce stress. Office politics and gossip arise due to competition. Apart from harming your work, these things will also impact your personal life.
So preventing yourself from all these things is a must for you. Don’t be a part of any negative conversation, argument, or criticism, and also stop passing rumours.
5. Don’t Share Your Goals
Always try to keep silent about your goals with your colleagues. Because no one is the well-wisher in the office, they all are competing with you.
Sharing your plans might hurt your promotion or chances of success. Save all your energy towards your mission not wasting it on explaining to others.
6. Stay Away From Toxic Coworkers
Some people in the office suck your energy and positivity. They knowingly do backbiting, gossiping, cruising, blaming, and spreading unnecessary rumours about you.
Imagine a wall between you and such people who are creating a disturbance in your work. This is the best way to deal with these kinds of people.
7. Organize Your Desk
Organizing your desk will not only bring down your stress level but also increase your productivity. Invest a few minutes to clean your area and put motivational quotes and meaningful photos on the desk wall.
A messy and dirty workspace creates negative thoughts and distractions. Misplacing important paperwork and documents will not be a problem when you are keeping everything in place.
Small efforts always keep you ahead of your daily tasks in the workplace.
8. Stress Relief Breaks
Stress relief breaks inside or outside the office are a perfect mood-changing activity during your job. This break may include a short nap, listening to songs, self-messaging, going out for a walk, etc.
Taking a break is not wasting time, it makes you more productive & keeps your mood fresh, In fact, this way, you are indirectly giving a break for your eyes which are busy with the computer screen the whole day.
9. Stay Connected
Generally, it is seen, that people who struggle with anxiety don’t participate in any activity. Don’t make this mistake, you should make a positive & strong relationship with your boss, team leader, and coworkers.
Isolation and lack of communication create misunderstandings & assumptions about your personality. Don’t give them a chance to think bad about you.
If you are not involved with anyone or in any office activities, you will have a stressful time at the office.
10. Stay Healthy
If you are not fit, you will get irritated and will not perform well. So do something for your wellness even when you are in the office.
Keep a water bottle with you to get hydrated throughout the day. You can also put juice, energy drinks, or milk in a container to boost your mood and health.
Sitting in one place for long hours is tiring for everyone and it is also not good for your body.
Arrange the standing desk for you if possible, otherwise, stand for some time without any tool. This practice will keep your heart, muscles, and legs strong, and help to burn extra calories.
11. Be Comfortable
A comfortable body and environment keep you calm. Understand what makes you comfortable. Generally, a good posture provides long-term relaxation for your neck, shoulder, and whole body.
Consider these below points for a comfortable environment:
- Adjust your chair height accordingly to reduce the risk of back pain.
- Your feet shouldn’t be cross-legged, they should always be on the floor.
- Your sitting position should be changed every 30 minutes.
12. Forget Multitasking
Multitasking makes you less effective, and less productive and slows down your brain. Multitasking often takes more time as you are switching your tasks frequently.
And when you are unable to complete the task, you will slowly feel stressed. To complete your different tasks in one day, you must calculate the hours as per the importance of the work.
13. Power Poses
Power poses help to reduce stress. Act normal even when you are uncomfortable and stressed. Perfect body language or power poses help to improve your mood. Saying repeatedly “I am stressed” makes you more stressed.
Positive body language helps to change your thoughts and increase confidence. Remember this quotation “Fake It Till You Make It”.
14. Examine Your Problem
Just rejecting your problem is not always the best solution. You should find a cause that makes you irritated.
Without knowing the exact problem, you can’t help yourself.
Slowly, you find a bad impact on everything like lack of quality in your work, communication gap with your colleagues, seeing effects on personal life.
Sometimes your fears are imaginary, they never happen in your life. So knowing the exact problem is important whether you solve it yourself or talk to someone whom you trust.
15. Accept Your Stress
Anxiety and stress usually happen when you care about something. Sometimes your extra care leads to lots of tension rather than being everything good.
If you want to reduce stress then make stress your friend by accepting it. First, try to accept that your stress is normal.
Don’t respond to your negative thoughts. Rather than wasting your energy on depressive thoughts, divert the energy to be involved in your tasks.
16. Ready For Backup
Stress and anxiety are normal but chronic stress should not be accepted.
Constant stress could happen due to many reasons like poorly matched positions, job insecurity, excessive demand, or unhealthy routines.
If you have tried everything to get rid of your stressful life at the office, you must think about changing your job.
So get ready for a new job if you find yourself in deeper problems. Continuous tensions make you sick. So the best advice is to quit the job rather than being anxious.
This will soothe you, provide relaxation, and give you new energy & confidence. And your work performance might be increased than before without taking too much hurdle.
Conclusion
I have covered 16 coping strategies that will help you reduce stress at the workplace and maintain your mental health during stressful moments. Of course, you are not facing all the problems at once while doing your job. So follow the one which you relate to yourself.
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Trapti Gupta is the Founder of PrideInWear. This website helps people make the best decisions when they are purchasing any technology, home, kitchen, and lifestyle-related gadgets.
