If you have a job, it’s almost certain that you’ve experienced job related stress. Tight deadlines, long hours, disagreeable co-workers, heavy workloads, job insecurity and the hectic daily commute are just a few of the things that contribute to on the job stress. Even people who love their jobs experience stress at work. Unfortunately, when a stressful job becomes too much to handle, it can have serious effects on your physical and mental health.
Job related stress can often result in symptoms such as headaches, gastrointestinal problems, moodiness, muscle tensions, difficulty concentrating on tasks and insomnia. Physically, chronic, or long term, stress can result in high blood pressure, a weakened immune system, impotence, obesity and heart disease. Mentally, a stressful job can cause irritability, depression, anxiety, discouragement, pessimism and feelings of helplessness and isolation. Often times, people react to stress in unhealthy ways: excessive absenteeism, poor work performance, anger, violence, overeating, unhealthy eating habits, smoking, or alcoholism and substance abuse.
Dealing With on the Job Stress
In a lot of circumstances, you may be unable to avoid the situations that cause your job stress. So how do you deal with it? Well, you can always get a new job, but you’ll probably experience the same type of stresses – just in a different environment. And then there’s the ultimate solution to work related stress: quit your job and stay at home. As tempting as that might be, it’s not a viable option for most people.
A more effective way to handle a stressful job would be to adopt useful, healthy habits to reduce the effects of job related stress.
Identify the Causes of Job Stress
The first thing you need to do is identify your stressors – the things at work that trigger stress. On the job stress can be caused by many factors, including:
- Long hours
- Tight deadlines
- Heavy workloads
- New duties and responsibilities
- Poor relationships with colleagues or bosses
- Unsafe working environment
- Job insecurity
- Low wages
- Organizational changes
- Harassment
- Bullying
- Unsatisfying work
- Insufficient skills for the job
- Over-supervision
- Lack of resources
- Lack of advancement opportunities
- Discrimination
- A crisis event, such as a workplace accident or incident
Healthy Ways to Manage a Stressful Job
While you may not be able to eliminate the things that trigger stress at work, there are things you can do to reduce the impact they have on your life.
It’s important to not only identify the stressors at your job, but also how they correlate to the physical and emotional reactions you experience. Do you get a headache while performing certain tasks? Do you find yourself getting irritable as an important deadline approaches? By recognizing the stressors in your workplace environment and how you respond will enable you to manage your stress in a more productive and healthy manner.
Learn to manage your time more effectively. No matter how hectic work gets, always make time for yourself. Take a break when you feel the need to. Use your vacation time.
Engage in healthy activities to manage your stress. Some healthy activities that help to reduce stress include exercise, yoga, meditation, prayer, listening to relaxing music and reading. A relaxing hobby such as gardening, knitting, coloring or keeping a journal can also help.
Eat healthy and get plenty of sleep.
Talk to your manager about your problems and see if changes can be made in the workplace to help reduce your stress. If your place of work has counselors they would be a great resource too.
Reach out to family, friends and co-workers for support. Talking about your stress can relieve it. If stress is having a major impact on your emotional health, you may want to seek professional advice from a psychologist or other expert. You aren’t the only one who’s experienced workplace stress.
Remember to have a positive outlook. Be patient – don’t let it get to you. Don’t try to accomplish too much all at once. Focus on one stressor at a time. It takes time for unhealthy stress related behaviors to develop and it will take time to replace them with healthy ones.
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Is a stressful job having a negative impact on your life and relationships? Dr. D Ivan Young is a world-renowned public speaker and life coach dedicated to improving the lives of individuals, couples, singles, professionals, athletes, companies and others. If the name sounds familiar, it’s probably because you’ve seen him on MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, YouTube, the Oxygen Network and others. Dr. D’s stress management techniques have taught thousands of people all over the country how to deal with the stress in their world. His advanced techniques can help anyone deal with a stressful job and other problems in their lives.