Work-related stress affects millions of people around the world, and it causes the appearance of mental, emotional and physical illnesses. In this sense, it is good that you know that the World Health Organization defines stress as “a global epidemic” and reveals that “work-related stress will become the new epidemic of the 21st century”, which is quite worrisome, so we should take our own preventive measures so that this does not affect us from an individual, family and social perspective.
On the other hand, there are studies that have determined the causes and consequences of this disease that afflicts work environment in the world, such as the one carried out by the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS), according to which Mexico is the country with the highest percentage of work-related stress with 75%, followed by China with 73% and the United States with 59%.
Likewise, in Mexico there are approximately 75,000 strokes per year, of which 25% are caused by work stress, something that is very common in other countries of the world, since although work-related stress is a natural response to the daily situations of work centers, it is demonstrated that when it is very intense and / or prolonged, it could significantly affect people’s physical, mental and / or emotional health, in addition to causing significant economic losses to the companies.
In this context, the International Labor Organization (ILO) has carried out studies that show that work-related stress represents losses between 0.5% and 3.5% of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the countries, while according to the American Psychological Agency (AAP) the most common sources of work stress are low salaries, work overload, few opportunities to climb positions and lack of social support. Considering these problems, we will give you 7 tips to reduce work-related stress and protect your physical, mental and / or emotional health:
1.- Plan your day and measure the time: The first advice we give you is to plan your day since leaving home in the morning, so you should measure the time it usually takes to get to your workplace, either in your own car, by taxi or public transportation. That will prevent setbacks and delays that will stress you before starting your workday, which is already a negative point to perform your tasks effectively and on time, because it generates an inappropriate emotional state, negatively affecting your well-being.
2.- Create a list of tasks daily: When you have a certain position, you must perform activities and specific functions that the company’s procedures manual provides; therefore, you must make a list of daily, weekly, and even monthly tasks according to the type of functions you perform in order to better organize yourself and avoid the waste of time and the distractions that are very frequent.
3.- Establish priorities: Within your list of tasks you establish which are the priority ones, with an order to consider the time in which they should be carried out, the importance and urgency of their carrying out in order to avoid delays in the processes, and therefore the stress that means that some process does not flow due to the lack of organization of your work. There is nothing better than knowing that one has fully fulfilled with the work, on time and efficiently.
4.- Take your time to think and focus: When the tasks are being carried out and you are fulfilling the functions of your position, you must think carefully about the things you will do, focusing properly to avoid mistakes that you must then correct, which will obviously make you and the company waste valuable time, generating an important level of stress that can affect your emotional state and your comprehensive well-being.
5.- Rest at least every two hours: If the workday causes you a lot of fatigue and stress, it is recommended that you rest for five minutes every two hours, no more than that, since if you abuse, complaints from your superiors can come and the work can delay. Five minutes for you to move away from the tasks you are developing are enough to relax, especially if it is done every two hours.
6.- Organize your workplace: The disorder at the workplace is a factor that generates stress, not only because of the heavy environment that is felt when there is disorder, but also because of the fact that most of the time you do not find the documents, invoices, letters, data records and information in general that you need to perform some task, or that your immediate boss may be requesting urgently. Avoid these bad moments by organizing your workplace, seeing it beautiful, clean and organized will help you to feel better.
7.- Avoid distractions: Do not get distracted in conversations that you can have at another time, as this can generate delays in completing your tasks and functions, and although at the moment everything seems to be fine and you are relaxed, later things can get complicated, and you will be very stressed. Then we recommend you to apply the following saying: “better safe than sorry”; do not get distracted unnecessarily and fully fulfill your duties.
Finally, we add to the 7 tips to reduce work-related stress important aspects such as being assertive and learning to say “no”, the delegation of tasks, the fulfillment of the opening and closing hours of the working day, and the maintenance of good eating and sleeping habits, to keep a good physical, mental and emotional state to be able to go to the workplace and fulfill your functions. If you have already tried all these options and they have not worked for you, then you should go to a therapist.
ALFA