Work and stress go hand-in-hand. In some ways, work wouldn’t be work without an element of stress.
Although stress gets a bad rap, it’s not totally a bad thing. We actually need healthy levels of stress to avoid boredom and depression and to stay motivated and mentally stimulated.
Of course, with modern work culture, it’s all too easy to experience more stress than is healthy on account of your job. And while work stressors may feel like a fact of life, chronic stress and anxiety can result in harmful short- and long-term physical and mental health effects.
But no matter the cause of your work-related stress, there are coping strategies that can help you manage whatever comes up.
How work stress can affect the rest of your life
Work stress can originate from a wide variety of sources, and is a common affliction in the modern workplace. These are some frequent causes:
- An excessive workload or lack of company support
- Low pay
- Unclear expectations or conflicting demands
- Lack of control
- Conflicts with coworkers
Unfortunately, what happens at work doesn’t stay at work. When you experience stress at your job, that carries over into the other parts of your life as well.
Relationship troubles
First, it can interfere with your relationships. Work stress can make it difficult to devote time and energy toward familial, romantic, and platonic relationships alike.
If dealing with job anxiety takes up a significant portion of your mental energy, then it directly detracts from how much you’re able to focus on your non-work relationships. Additionally, fixating on your stress can bring undue negativity into your relationships, which can be very difficult on the other person (and yourself).
Decreased productivity and job satisfaction
Furthermore, high stress jobs can actually lead to decreased performance, productivity, and satisfaction. Continuing at a job that doesn’t bring you satisfaction can drain your energy, causing you to lose interest and motivation, potentially making it more difficult to motivate to find a new position.
Poor mental health
Work stress, like any stress, affects your mental health. It can lead to a variety of adverse effects on mental health, including anxiety, depression, burnout, and substance abuse disorders. Beyond that, workers who feel stressed are more likely to develop unhealthy behaviors, including smoking cigarettes, poor diet, and alcohol or drug abuse.
Physical health issues
Beyond the mental and emotional effects, anxiety from work may negatively affect your physical health. Chronic stress can raise your cortisol beyond healthy levels, which can lead to bodily effects like sleep disturbance, weight gain, digestive issues, more frequent illness, blood sugar fluctuation, headaches, and high blood pressure. It can also lead to long-term health issues like autoimmune conditions, heart disease, chronic pain, and diabetes.
Tools and tips for reducing stress from work
Even if you’re in a stressful job situation that you’re unable to leave, there are ways that you can prioritize your health and reduce stress from work. These tactics involve deescalation during moments of duress as well as general lifestyle practices that can help you better manage a high-stress work environment.
Be aware of stress when it happens
The first step toward reducing stress is knowing when it’s happening. When you’re feeling a sense of overwhelm at work, it can be difficult to slow down and take the time to actually identify what feelings you may be feeling. However, increasing your self-awareness and checking in with yourself are the first steps toward managing stress, because you need to recognize it in order to regulate it.
Keep track of stressors
Every person has their own tipping point, and your experience of stressors depends on a variety of factors. That’s why it’s helpful to keep track of the situations and events that bring up anxious reactions --- so you know what exactly causes stress for you.
Try keeping a journal for a few weeks to note down experiences of stress, the situations in which they occurred, and how you responded to them. Useful information might include details about your physical environment, your thoughts/feelings during the event, the people involved, and your reactions after the fact. This can help you gain a better overall understanding of any patterns, which can then help you to identify suitable coping mechanisms and boundaries.
Identify unhealthy responses
When it comes to dealing with work stress, coping mechanisms are critical. Unfortunately, stress can too easily lead to unhealthy adaptive strategies, like eating poorly, drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, or using drugs. While these can offer a quick reprieve from negative feelings, the long-term effects of these behaviors are dangerous.
It can be difficult to break the cycle of these defense mechanisms, but taking steps toward healthier stress responses can significantly improve how you feel. These are some positive stress relievers to consider:
- Exercise regularly. Physical activity increases your brain’s production of endorphins and can generally help your body manage its fight or flight response. Don’t overdo it --- too much or too intense exercise can actually increase cortisol levels --- but a consistent, moderate workout routine improves your mental health as well as your physical health. Yoga, martial arts, and other practices that combine mindfulness with physical activity might be a good place to start.
- Meditate. Practicing meditation can help you deal with stress. This practice emphasizes mindfulness and relaxation, and it’s very accessible: with the help of an app or an online video, you can learn to meditate at home. It can also help you improve your sleep quality, which can, in turn, lower your cortisol levels.
- Prioritize sleep. Sleep deprivation can make it harder to cope with stressors and can lead to increased cortisol production. This can create a vicious cycle if stress itself is disrupting your sleep. Small changes like cutting down on caffeine and restricting the use of screens before bed can make a significant difference in sleep quality.
Establish healthy boundaries
In our increasingly digital world, it’s easy for the lines between work and personal life to become blurred. This is even more true in the recent years of increased working from home. Feeling like you need to be available 24/7 might make it impossible to truly relax.
However you can, try to establish work/life boundaries for yourself that will help you actually have time for yourself. This might include:
- A daily cut-off time for checking emails or an email-free policy for weekends
- Taking time to consider and set realistic deadlines before you accept new projects
- Asking for a project’s timeline before you determine whether you can take it on
- Delegating tasks to coworkers
Talk to your supervisor
This can seem daunting, but keep in mind that your boss wants you to be as productive and effective as possible at work, and you can’t do that if you’re dealing with chronic stress or burnout. When talking to a supervisor, aim to avoid complaining, and instead work together to lay out your job priorities and strategize an effective plan for managing work stressors.
Before you start this discussion, think about what you might need, whether that’s guidance on time management, a better understanding of expectations, or another workplace resource.
Take time for yourself
Being able to completely disengage from work from time to time is critical for wellbeing. You need time for yourself, whether that’s spent relaxing and recharging alone, enjoying quality time with family or friends, or pursuing one of your hobbies or interests.
Turn your phone off and focus on something completely unrelated from work. Take vacation days and leave your laptop at home. As often as you can, do whatever feels best to recharge and recenter.
Use relaxation techniques at work and outside of work
Deep breathing is a simple yet effective relaxation technique that you can employ during moments of stress, but also as a general daily practice. The great thing about breath focus is that you can do it literally any time, and it can counteract the feeling of the fight-or-flight response, which speeds up your breathing and heart rate.
Additionally, you can incorporate regular body scans where you mentally focus on one part of the body at a time, starting with your toes and finishing at your head, relaxing your muscles along the way. This can help you address the physical manifestations of the stress response.
Identify support
It’s critical to identify a support network as you deal with anxiety. This can include friends and family who you trust, but can also include a therapist, councilor, or any support resources that your employer may offer.
Monitor your health
Chronic stress can negatively impact your wellbeing, which is why managing workplace stress also means checking in on your underlying health. Stress is related directly to cortisol, but your cortisol levels can also affect a variety of other hormones and bodily processes, and hormonal or nutrient imbalances can snowball into serious health effects down the road.
For monitoring your health, you might consider a service like Base: it offers an easy way to check your stress-related biomarkers at home, then it provides specific suggestions for lifestyle changes and supplements that are tailored to your specific needs. This type of service also makes it easy and accessible to track your health over time, which can help you gain a better understanding of what stress management techniques work best for you.
Chronic stress can feel impossible to escape from --- especially if it’s happening as a result of your job, which makes up a huge portion of your life. But there are plenty of small steps you can take to relieve yourself of stress and introduce more calm into your life.
