Invest In Stress Reduction Structures
I coach clients that deal with a lot of stress on the job. This is never good for us, but there are ways to make our bodies and minds more resilient in the face of stress.
An entrepreneur that has perfectionistic tendencies and is not able to delegate will be much worse off than one who can. They also need to be able to distinguish what is within their control and what is not, so they can let go of things they cant control such as the economy. Developing and maintaining a positive attitude is essential as is an attitude of gratitude. Creating an environment where their employees thrive will build good will that will come back to them a thousand fold. Good communication skills are essential to creating that environment these skills will also be critical to dealing with customers.
Get support from family, friends and spent time with cherished pets. There has to be balance, even for the driven entrepreneur. Allow downtime with people who care about you. Soak in the good feelings and laugh. Again, being around people we like and we can laugh with can lower our blood pressure and help our immune system. Avoid people who suck the life out of you. You cant afford it.
Response submitted by Coach Lynn Chapman
Ways To Eliminate Stress At Work
The average business professional has 30 to 100 projects on their plate. Modern workers are interrupted seven times an hour and distracted up to 2.1 hours a day. And four out of 10 people working at large companies are experiencing a major corporate restructuring, and therefore facing uncertainly about their futures. This may be why more than 40% of adults say they lie awake at night plagued by the stressful events of the day.
“People are asking me for answers,” says Sharon Melnick, Ph.D., a business psychologist and author of just released Success Under Stress. “Everyone feels overwhelmed and overly busy.”
Is there a way to maintain steady focus throughout the day? Is it possible to do everything that needs to get done and still have energy left over after work? How do you keep cool under so many demands? Informed by 10 years of Harvard research and field-tested by more than 6,000 clients and trainees, Melnick offers the following strategies to take your work stress down a peg, before it takes over your life.
Act Rather Than React
Take A Deep Breath
If you’re feeling overwhelmed or are coming out of a tense meeting and need to clear your head, a few minutes of deep breathing will restore balance, says Melnick. Simply inhale for five seconds, hold and exhale in equal counts through the nose. “It’s like getting the calm and focus of a 90-minute yoga class in three minutes or less at your desk,” she says.
Eliminate Interruptions
Schedule Your Day For Energy And Focus
Think Like A Top Athlete
Image via Creative Commons http://www.flickr.com/photos/adam_jones/
One needs to delve into further depth and practice healthy habits to achieve sustained release of pressure. Professional sports athletes know how to use behavioral techniques to stay relaxed while under extreme pressure to perform their sport.
We just saw the Super Bowl. Were those athletes stressed?
They have several levels and depths of support: coaches, money, friends and family. They have specific relaxation techniques in conjunction with staying relaxed while performing in their sport. Athletes also have a reproducible system to refer back too when stressed and know when it is healthy and responsible to take a break.
Coach Toby Jensen
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Breathing And Relaxation Exercises
Many people find exercises that focus on breathing and muscle relaxation to be helpful in relieving stress. The playlist below will help you to understand how stress works and start feeling better. These exercises can be done anywhere and are designed to help you feel more relaxed in general, as well as helping you feel calmer if you are becoming stressed.
This playlist is free to download, and you can also stream it using the Soundcloud website or app. You can download and listen to individual tracks if there are particular exercises that work best for you. If you’re listening to it for the first time, it’s best to start from the beginning.
To access a BSL version of this playlist, .
Find out more by checking out these 10 stress busters.
How To Handle Extreme Stress And Problems
ByKent Swigg | Submitted On March 31, 2010
Do you want stress free life? Anxiety and stress are major problem which take away the pleasure from our lives. Though, you cannot totally avoid stress, still you can make sure that it does not affect you too much.
Read the following tips to learn how to handle stress better:
1. Write Down Your Worries:
It is not easy to divert the mind when it is busy with worrying thoughts. An effective technique is to write down these worries on paper. This will help in clearing the mind. Now it can focus on other productive things.
What happens when you pen down your stressful thoughts is that they will lose their power. The thoughts aren’t going to disappear away so quickly. But their power will have diminished greatly just by the simple exercising of writing them down. How cool is that!
Note down the things which are currently on your mind. Beside them, write down possible solutions which you can try out. This will give you an actionable plan to implement. Now you can rest in peace.
2. Start Exercising:
Get into the habit of exercising regularly. You should exercise at least 3-5 times in a week. Make sure each session lasts for about 30 minutes or more.
You don’t need to join a gym. You can carry on simple exercises like jogging, swimming, jumping rope, biking etc. When you exercise, the body releases a hormone called endorphin. This will help in making you feel calm and also enhances your mood.
3. Let Go of Negative Things:
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Signs Its Time To Seek Help
Even with a good self-management plan, sometimes you may need more support. A mental health professional can be a great resource, but theyre particularly important to see more urgently if you have thoughts of self-harm or feel drawn to drugs or alcohol as a coping mechanism.
Seek help right away if you have suicidal thoughts. Call your healthcare provider or the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK . Call 911 if you or someone you know is in immediate danger or go to the nearest emergency room.
Remember: Chronic stress is something many people experience, but it doesnt mean you have to slog through it, and certainly not alone. The sooner you get care and prioritize your own healing, the sooner you can feel more like yourself.
References:
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Accept The Things You Can’t Change
Changing a difficult situation isn’t always possible. Try to concentrate on the things you do have control over.
“If your company is going under and is making redundancies, for example, there’s nothing you can do about it,” says Professor Cooper.
“In a situation like that, you need to focus on the things that you can control, such as looking for a new job.”
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How To Deal With Stress
You’re not born knowing how to deal with stress. Instead, you slowly learn over time what does and doesn’t work for youmostly.
While stress is a normal part of life, it’s still tough to live through. And sometimes you get thrown curveballs you haven’t deal with before. While some research has shown that short bursts of stress can be good for you, a new study out of Ohio State University and published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that dealing with persistent, long-term stress can actually change your genes, leading to an increase in inflammation that can bring on a variety of health issues.
That’s one of the reasons why it’s so important to learn how to cope with stress the right way. Also, it’s nearly impossible to fully banish stress from your life. “Over the course of a lifetime, everyone will be confronted with various types of stress,” Monifa Seawell, MD, a board-certified psychiatrist in Atlanta, tells Health. “Because of this, it’s important to develop healthy ways to manage stress.”
These are the best, expert-backed ways to de-stress right now.
Keep Perfectionism In Check
Being a high achiever might make you feel good about yourself and help you excel at work, but being a perfectionist can create problems for you .
You might not be able to do everything perfectly, every timeespecially in a busy, fast-paced job. A good strategy to avoid the perfectionism trap is always striving to just do your best and making time to congratulate yourself on your efforts. You may find that your results are better and youll be much less stressed at work.
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How Does Your Body React To Work Stress
Imagine for a moment that your boss has emailed you about an unfinished assignment . Your body and mind instantly respond, activating a physical reaction called the fight-or-flight response. Your heart beats faster, your breath quickens, and your muscles tense. At the same time you might say to yourself, Im going to get fired if I dont finish this. Then to manage your anxiety and negative self-talk, you work late into the night to complete the task.
Over the course of our evolutionary history, humans developed this coordinated fear response to protect against dangers in our environment. For example, a faster heart rate and tense muscles would help us escape from predators. In the modern era, fear continues to serve an important function. After all, the fight-or-flight response can provide the necessary energy to pull an all-nighter and keep your job.
But what happens if you encounter stressful experiences at work every day? Over time, chronic work stress can lead to a psychological syndrome known as burnout. Warning signs of burnout are overwhelming exhaustion, cynicism, and a sense of inefficacy. Certain work-related stressors are closely linked with burnout. Examples are having too much work or too little independence, inadequate pay, lack of community between coworkers, unfairness or disrespect, and a mismatch between workplace and personal values.
Draw Lines: Boundaries And Balance
image via creative commons http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/
Consciously reshape the things, people and undesirable situations it helps to push back on those who are pushing you. Understand that you dont have to react to everything that is thrown your way and to follow through on your own goals within a more comfortable time frame. If we take life too seriously, we will implode! We, as coaches, of all people, must follow our own advice and live a balanced life, surrounded by people of like mind.
Set boundaries around friends and family who seem to want to suck the life out of you and to pull you into their lifestyle of negativity. That, good folks, is the most important of all!
Response submitted by Coach Tanya Ragbeer
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How Can Work Stress Affect Well
Long-term exposure to work-related stressors like these can affect mental health. Research links burnout with symptoms of anxiety and depression. In some cases, this sets the stage for serious mental health problems. Indeed, one study shows younger people who routinely face heavy workloads and extreme time pressure on the job are more likely to experience major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder.
High levels of stress at work and outside of it can affect physical health, too. Repeated activation of the fight-or-flight response can disrupt bodily systems and increase susceptibility to disease. For example, repeated release of the stress hormone cortisol can disturb the immune system, and raise the likelihood of developing autoimmune disorders, cardiovascular disease, and Alzheimers disease. Chronic stress can also affect health by interfering with healthy behaviors, such as exercise, balanced eating, and sleep.
Work stress can also harm companies or organizations. Burnout reduces job productivity and boosts absenteeism and job turnover, and also leads to conflict between coworkers, causing stress to spread within a workplace.
Simple Ways To Relieve Stress And Anxiety
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Stress and anxiety are common experiences for most people. In fact, 70% of adults in the United States say they feel stress or anxiety daily.
Here are 16 simple ways to relieve stress and anxiety.
Exercise is one of the most important things you can do to combat stress.
It might seem contradictory, but putting physical stress on your body through exercise can relieve mental stress.
The benefits are strongest when you exercise regularly. People who exercise regularly are less likely to experience anxiety than those who dont exercise .
There are a few reasons behind this:
- Stress hormones: Exercise lowers your bodys stress hormones such as cortisol in the long run. It also helps release endorphins, which are chemicals that improve your mood and act as natural painkillers.
- Sleep: Exercise can also improve your sleep quality, which can be negatively affected by stress and anxiety.
- Confidence: When you exercise regularly, you may feel more competent and confident in your body, which in turn promotes mental wellbeing.
- Try to find an exercise routine or activity you enjoy, such as walking, dancing, rock climbing or yoga.
Activities such as walking or jogging that involve repetitive movements of large muscle groups can be particularly stress relieving.
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Listen To Soothing Music
Listening to music can have a very relaxing effect on the body.
Slow-paced instrumental music can induce the relaxation response by helping lower blood pressure and heart rate as well as stress hormones.
Some types of classical, Celtic, Native American and Indian music can be particularly soothing, but simply listening to the music you enjoy is effective too .
Nature sounds can also be very calming. This is why theyre often incorporated into relaxation and meditation music.
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Create A Wellness Toolbox
A wellness toolbox is a set of tools that you can use to help soothe yourself when you are feeling down. The tools you find most helpful might not work for someone else so its important to carefully consider what things can help you feel your best. Cuddling your pet, listening to your favorite music, taking a warm bath, or reading a good book are just a few tools you might find helpful. Create a list of the activities you might try when youre feeling bad. Choose an activity to try when youre having a particularly rough time.
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Protect Your Healthas Much As You Can
Youre not much good to anyone sick, so try to be kind to your body. If youre tempted to go without meals, nibble on apple slices. Take short walks to clear your head and get some exercise. I found myself bawling my eyes out by the community pool on Memorial Day. Did I look crazy? Maybe. Do I care? Nope. I needed to release some tension. Crying helped.
Chronic Stress And How To Manage It
Everyone seems stressed these days. From the current pandemic to economic pressures, racial unrest, political tensions and natural disasters, the start of the new decade has seemed to throw one stressor after another.
At some point, that stress may become something you cant simply shake off: Experiencing stress over an extended period may indicate that stress is chronic.
Chronic stress can take a toll on your mind and body. Fortunately, there are things you can do to back on the path to mental and physical wellbeing.
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Simple Steps To Deal With Stress And Anxiety
Carly Snyder, MD is a reproductive and perinatal psychiatrist who combines traditional psychiatry with integrative medicine-based treatments.
Do you wonder if you may worry too much? And how much anxiety is officially “too much?” To answer these questions, you may need to deepen your understanding of stress and anxiety, and how they help and hurt you.
Path To Improved Well Being
Stress can cause health problems or make existing problems worse. Talk to your family doctor if you think your symptoms could be caused by stress. Its important to make sure they arent caused by other health problems.
Learn to recognize when youre feeling stressed. Early warning signs of stress include tension in your shoulders and neck or clenching your hands into fists. Try to avoid the event or situation that leads to your stress. If thats impossible, change how you react to stress.
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