Having a stressful job can be difficult at the best of times, but at the worst of times, such as what many of us are now experiencing with due to the current coronavirus pandemic, it can be even harder.
Stress caused by employment can be due to many different causes. Some are to do with the actual work itself, others with the workplace environment, but often it can be down to the way your circumstances interact with your work commitments.
Thankfully there are many easy and simple things that you can do to help you cope with job-related stress. The good news is that most of them are free, and all of them usually just depend on recognizing you have a problem and taking that all-important first step to try to solve it.
Face facts
If you find yourself suffering from the effects of stress, it can be a difficult thing to deal with. You might be one of those people who have been raised to have a ‘keep calm and carry on’ attitude to the problems you will encounter in life, and sometimes this can make people reluctant to face facts and admit they have a problem.
The critical fact to accept is that to find a solution, you must first identify the problem. So if you are experiencing stress in your life, you need to work out what is causing it. Job-related reasons are usually quite easy to identify once you start to look at what’s actually going on in your life, and when you’ve made that connection, you can then begin to do something about it.
Communication
Having good lines of communication should be a priority for employers because if a worker can’t raise issues, problems will fester, and productivity will suffer. If something to do with your job is causing you undue stress, the matter needs to be raised with your manager or another suitable workplace superior.
Sometimes it’s best to have an informal chat about the situation, but at other times it can be a good idea to get things in writing from the start. Only you will know the best way to begin the conversation because you are the one who is being negatively affected by whatever is causing you to be stressed out.
Talk to a professional
If, for any reason, you don’t feel comfortable talking to a work colleague, perhaps because the stress is being caused by the way your work and personal life act on each other, then you should speak to a professional. They can offer an impartial, discreet, and confidential ear.
Today that doesn’t mean paying vast amounts of money to lie on a couch in an office while someone listens to you talk about your mother. The beauty of the way that online therapy works is that it gives you a chance to take advantage of proven methods of solving deeply personal problems using the most up to date methods and processes. Not only does this mean you can access help from the comfort of your own home, but also that the discretion levels are even higher than having to make a physical visit to a therapist’s office or take time off work to do so.
Make changes
Of course, no matter how much help and advice you can access, it might just be the case that your current job is too stressful for you. If that is the case, you need to have the courage to make changes. It might be that it’s just your current employer that is the problem, the amount of travel going to work involves, or even the people you work alongside rather than the actual task involved.
In this case, the solution should be relatively straightforward and simply mean finding a similar role elsewhere. Of course, it could be that it is the work itself that is causing the stress, and you might need to consider a complete career change. Doing so can be especially difficult for people working in areas such as medical roles or other similar vocational occupations. Still, at some point, you have to decide that your health and well-being must be your top priority.
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