It is estimated that, in the UK, the average person feels stressed around about 14 times a day. So when you need to be productive, how do you cope in order to be successful?
Stress is one of the most common problems people face on a day to day basis, whether it’s at work or at home. Heightened stress levels can make you frustrated, irritable and in some cases, physically ill. However, if you’re in a position where you need to be productive and need to get things done, stress can be a tricky obstacle to overcome. Besides, stress isn’t just something you feel, there is heaps of evidence and theories which suggest that stress is a biological ailment, so the prospect of overcoming stress isn’t as easy as first thought.
When you’re stressed, your body releases chemicals such as ACTH and Epinephrine, so in some cases, stress isn’t just something you can ‘snap out of’.
It is fair to assume that your office or workplace is where you feel most stressed. If this is the case, then you might, or already have, built an association between your office and stress. It isn’t just your workplace environment either, your typical jobs that you have to do day in day out may be the cause to all your stress. Theorists Walter Cannon and Philip Bard believe humans are stressed when they think that they don’t have the resources to deal with the task in hand. I’m sure at some point you have found yourself muttering the words “I just can’t do it.”
What must be made immediately clear is that feeling stressed isn’t that big of a problem. There are many strategies to cope with stress in order to overcome it. These methods help calm you down so you can evaluate what is wrong in order to come up with a solution to your problem.
Simple things such as sharing your problems with someone else or taking a 10 minute break to go for a walk can help clear your mind, so that you can begin to assess your problems. When you have a clear and healthy mind, then you can start to adjust your attitude. Analyse your standards. Don’t become a perfectionist. Set yourself realistic goals and learn to be ok with being ‘good enough’. Be assertive, also. If you begin to let your problems mount up, your stress will eat away at you. Take control of your situation and face your problems head on. These are only a couple of methods that can help reduce your stress levels in order to be more productive on a daily basis.
These skills are universal and will help keep you cool under pressure, and help you perform even at the toughest of times. These skills wont just help you with stress, they will help you with nerves and anxiety, too. If you’re preparing for job interview or have a to-do list as long as your arm, introduce these skills and start ticking those jobs off one by one.
Turn your stress into a strength by tackling it head on. Stress in itself isn’t a positive thing, but teaching yourself the tools to deal with it is. A common fear is the fear of the unknown, so when you know how to cope with a stressful situation, nothing, or at least fewer things, will phase you.
Charlie Atkinson
