Burnout? 5 Tips on How to Cope with Work Stress

Work stress has significant consequences when left unchecked. These effects range from relatively benign, like being more prone to flu and cold, to more severe conditions, like heart disease, metabolic syndrome, and even death.

Unfortunately, work stress is widespread, and finding a job with little to no stress is hard. That said, a more realistic approach to work stress is knowing how to cope with it daily. You can take steps to manage your stress more easily without impeding your work schedule and performance. With that in mind, here are some tips to help you cope with stress.

Create an Efficient Pre-Work Ritual

Mornings are usually a very hectic time for 9-5 people. From scrambling to get your kids ready for school to the traffic you’re about to face on your way to work, most workers are usually stressed even before starting their jobs. Also, being stressed already makes them more prone to frustrations at work, increasing their stress levels significantly.

To avoid this from happening every day, there are some steps you can do to make your mornings a little bit easier on yourself. For example, you can prepare breakfast during the night so when morning comes, preparations will be a bit easier. You can also pre-pack your kid’s snacks, so you’ll just have to put them in their bags the next day. Or if you could, you can wake up a little earlier so you’ll have more time to prepare your kids and get to your workplace before traffic comes.

Clean Up Your Workplace

You might not know it, but many stressors can be found on your desk at work. For most people, it might be their disorganized desk or even the trash on their desks. Others even find their chairs as stressors. One thing you can do, thankfully, is to clean and organize your desk more. It might be time-consuming, but it will do wonders for your mental health.

You can do this by cleaning your desk regularly, putting all your papers in a folder somewhere you can see, or even changing your office chair for a more comfortable one. You could also clean your workplace from noise. If your office is usually noisy, you can use noise-canceling headphones when the situation calls for it.

Do Chunking Instead of Multitasking

Multitasking is usually heralded as the most efficient way of working. It saves you much time for other work while preparing for the next day. However, people soon discover it’s one of the worst work methods.

Having a phone in one ear while reading a document and doing calculations at the same time significantly decreases their work efficiency, and their mental stress has skyrocketed. What you can do instead of multitasking is chunking. Chunking is organizing your work from larger to smaller ones and doing the larger tasks first. This way, you can focus more on the task at hand and be more efficient, especially with time management.

Do Some Breathing Exercises

Breathing exercises are probably one of the most effective ways to reduce stress at work. Breathing exercises regulate your heartbeat and, of course, your stress levels. They are efficient at relieving stress, releasing tension, and even making you more relaxed, increasing your work performance.

Not only that, but since breathing is something you can do anywhere; you don’t need to go to a private spot to do this. That said, once you notice that your stress is increasing, you can pause what you’re doing and do some breathing exercises. You can then do the following breathing exercises: the 4-7-8 technique, the box breathing method, and mindful breathing. Moreover, consider exploring breathwork exercises further by booking a session or seeking guidance from a professional. Learning specific techniques can be immensely helpful in managing stress and preventing burnout.

Get Enough Sleep

This is perhaps one of the most common problems that everyone in the workforce faces almost daily. Not getting enough sleep can affect our mental and physical capabilities, reducing our work performance and efficiency and making us more stressed. By being more stressed, it will also be harder for you to get quality sleep, making it a brutal cycle once it starts.

Luckily enough, there are plenty of ways you can have more quality sleep, like taking a hot bath before bedtime or using prescribed sleeping pills. However, you must consult your doctor before buying these pills. Also, sleeping pills can be quite expensive. If you opt for this route, go and look for the Best medication deals. With these deals, you can get discounts, freebies, and other benefits. By getting enough sleep, you’re significantly reducing your work stress, making you more prepared and ready for the day, and, in turn, increasing your work efficiency.

Final Words

Work stress is all too common in the workforce. While it can be trivial for some, it can also turn into something serious, especially for those with a health condition. That said, if you’re looking for ways to decrease your work stress levels, you can follow the tips we discussed above.