Hope Revisited

Another day having to deal with work stress and that person that keeps giving you problems. You feel your blood pressure going up and thoughts of how to eliminate 'that person' keeps crossing your mind.

Before you find yourself in prison after 'taking care of the problem', let's take a look at how you can avoid such a downhill spiral:

Problem people are everywhere, not just at the workplace. However, since you spend more of your time at work, you are faced with these people more often. It becomes most stressful if you need to work along side these people or have to manage them. If you fail to meet a deadline because of one of these people, I can only imagine how you must feel and yet stay professional. The end result would be 'stress'.

Here are some suggestions to keep your sanity:

Toughen up

At work, you are expected to treat 'business as business'. Constantly being concerned about others who are overly sensitive or just basically don't care about the job is not benefiting you in anyway. If you find that some of your co-workers or employees are not pulling their weight, you need to impose authority to remind them that teamwork is imperative to create quality work. If you're in a managerial position, you can do this by setting standards and work boundaries for employees to live up to.

Be assertive

Openly discuss with the people you are working with about each of your responsibilities to a given project or task. Approach the matter objectively and free of any emotional leverage. Emphasize your aim to produce an efficient working relationship that results to higher productivity.

Deal with unreasonable work demands

At times you might find yourself being asked to perform a task which you consider unreasonable. Before you react, learn to identify if the task is within your job description and what type of work is expected of you. If the request is outside of your work description, you need to know how to turn it down in a professional manner.

Taking 'time out'

Reducing job stress is best achieved by taking some time to replenish your energy. Sometimes a lunch break doesn't do the trick if you have to run out and take care of an errand instead of relaxing. When possible, take at least 15 minutes to clear your mind and rest. If you can find a location where you will not be interrupted, the end result would be even better.

It is very important, also, to have lunch. So many skip lunch and try to make up for it later at dinner or later. This is very unhealthy and will also make you gain weight. You'll become more tired and your immune system will suffer. Eat healthy and make time for exercise also. These are essential for your body.

Taking restful moments in small quantities throughout the day is very important to your well being and your health. In fact, I'm surprised it's not considered mandatory in some companies. Thank goodness there are others that require their employees take moments of rest since they know it will produce better workers. So if you're not working for one of these companies, find a way to 'recharge' yourself so you can keep your stress levels low.

Remember: Stop yourself from immediately reacting to problem people and stressful situations. Think before acting. Every act has a consequence so keep this in mind always.

Stress affects everyone differently. There are different kinds of stress as recognized by clinical and research studies. It is very important for each individual to recognize their cause of stress so they can learn how to conquer it and hopefully reduce stress levels. Each type of stress have different approaches to treatment.

Basically, there are three known types of stress: acute, episodic acute, and chronic stress. Nowadays, a fourth kind – psychological stress – is becoming more prevalent and is considered a legitimate type of stress.

Acute Stress

This is the most common form of stress, which results from the pressures one goes through in their everyday life. In small doses, it can actually be beneficial to a person. Think of athletes that are about to compete in an event. They experience acute stress, which triggers adrenaline and gives them a burst of energy needed to perform their best.

The symptoms for this type of stress are easily recognizable such as: back or neck pain, muscular tensions, headache, rapid heartbeat, sweaty palms, cold hands or feet.

Episodic Acute Stress

This stress is quite common to most people though there are a few others who experience it more often than others. An example is someone who who is so focused on achieving organization and yet always fail when it comes to performance. Therefore, it is not surprising when this person often become irritable, if not with themself then their initial environment. This also explains why the person might find the workplace quite a stressful environment.

Other cases are those people who keep worrying. They have become so pessimistic about the environment that they always project something wrong would happen. Hence, they end up feeling awful, tense, or anxious without having clear reasons for feeling that way.

Chronic Stress

This is the type of stress that wears a person out. It builds up over time and can produce long-term effects on a person, whether emotionally or physically. Most forms of chronic stress are caused by trauma that they find difficult to let go and so it continues to disrupt their everyday lives.

One condition of this stress is that people, suffering from this form of stress, often believe that it is something that is innate to them and that they cannot get rid of. This feeling makes treating this condition difficult because it is often ignored by the person affected by it. It can, however, be treated through stress management procedures and behavioral treatment.

Psychological Stress

This stress concerns itself more with a person's inability to respond to a given situation. During dangerous situations, your body produces hormones known as adrenaline and cortisol that prompts the body to make a response.

Compare this to charging a battery that produces high voltage that must be discharged. In the case of a person suffering from psychological stress, the body fails to discharge that burst of energy that is produced. The continued raise in your heart rate and the production of adrenaline could result to fatal problems in your heart.

There are several reasons as to how one acquires psychological stress but it can include trauma suffered from an emotionally disturbing event in the past or other emotional anxiety. The problem with people suffering from psychological stress is that they tend to induce more stress in their lives by subjecting themselves to stressful situations. Today, several groups hold counseling to help those who suffer from this condition and regain control over their lives.

One suggestion as to how to counteract the feeling of stress is to carry with you a small, palm-sized stone with the word 'relax' carved onto it. You might even be able to find these being sold on some websites throughout the web. As you begin to feel stressful, reach into you pocket and grasp the stone. After a while, you'll notice that as you hold onto the stone, you begin to feel more relaxed. It would act as a 'trigger' system to keep you calm.

Try it the next time you want to wring someone's neck for whatever reason – it might possibly save you from consequences you didn't think of.