How HR can support those suffering with stress at work

How HR can support those suffering with stress at work

Top Tips

Everyone who has ever held a job has felt the pressure of work-related stress. Even if you have the best job in the world and love what you do, you still might at some point stress over meeting deadlines or fulfilling challenging obligations. Let me tell you that stress at work is totally normal as it is something that always exists, but especially now with everything that is going on in the world, our stress might be feeling a little bit more elevated.

In this month’s tips I look at ways HR can support with handling stress at work.

Breath– I know this one is really obvious as we all breathe all the time but power of taking a deep breath can be something that helps you to move from reactive state to an active state. Taking time to breathe is actually going to allow the oxygen in your brain faster and especially if we are going to be doing some deep thinking, we want to be thoughtful in our actions. While you are taking a deep breath think of the next tip.
What is the real problem here? – The thing that you are feeling stressed about might not actually be the source of the problem but what is underlying that stress is that you don’t feel like you are in control. Often the problem is deeper than we think it is, so until we get to the point where we really understand the problem, we not going to be able to solve it. It is easier said than done but investing time into this step is something that will be really helpful.
Restore Control- If you are not in control, you are in chaos. When you have a stress at work ask yourself – what can I control? You can always control the things that you are in control of, this includes your energy, your effort, your workplace boundaries, these things really add up and when you are clear on what you can control it helps you release the stress of the things that you are not in control of.
Priority Check- When you don’t understand how things are prioritised at the company, it is easy to enter the state of overwhelm. You have all of this stuff to do and that creates a lot of stress at work, however when you know exactly what you should be focusing on, it allows you to prioritise work and take the most stress away.
Exercise- It will give you two immediate benefits: firstly, when you exercise you are going to decrease your level of two stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol. Secondly, if you do something as simple as go for a quick walk and just seeing different things and getting some clarity will be what gets you through that stress at work. At the very least it will make you feel better.

Bonus tip:

Stop being so hard on yourself– Sometimes things don’t go right, sometimes you make mistakes and that’s ok. I think one of the ways that we can do this is to make sure that you are cultivating a positive attitude, because when things don’t go your way it’s really easy to feel defeated, however when you cultivate that positive mindset it allows you to see the opportunity in every situation.