In an ideal world, we all want to establish good working relationships with people we have to deal with, especially those we have to meet on a regular basis.  But that will not always be the case.  In reality, we do get our share of colleagues who make it seem their career to make life just a little bit harder for you.  Unluckily for us, we do get pressures and stress from having to deal with the daily grind of life, and here, on one hand, we have to contend with these annoying colleagues.  So, how should you deal with it?

Stay Above Water

You can stay above office politics by not rising to the bait.  Many realize that these kinds of people already look foolish as it is, and calling other people’s attention to them will only be a waste of time.  Understand your job description and stick to it.  No one can force you to go over and beyond what is expected of you unless you do so of your own accord.  It may be for purposes of self improvement, but if it’s extra work for you that will cause you to lose track of business and other usual stuff, then don’t let them push you around.

Keep a watchful eye and ear around you for trouble that may come or has already occurred.  Be prepared with facts, logical reasoning, and figures, if necessary.  This is one of the reasons why one should keep important documents including emails in your personal file or folder.  You may need to reference these materials as evidences in case something like this comes up.  If you anticipate a possible issue or possible conflict of projects, make sure to procure your supervisor’s approval or let them know about your situation.  There would be times when you need someone to back you up when things get out of hand.

Need a Break

When you find yourself unable to keep your cool any longer, it might be time to get some time away from these people.  This is a viable situation especially when you have tried ignoring them and limiting your interaction with them.  But because the nature of your work requires you to keep in constant communication with them, you may want to rethink your options.  A person can only take so much at some point, and getting out even for a short while may be the exact remedy you need.

You will notice with most successful people that the one thing they have in common is that they are very passionate with what they do.  While the meaning of success is relative, it still does include the fact that people who consider themselves successful, regardless of material wealth, have a strong love for their chosen careers.

They are happy doing what they do, and because they have fun, it’s almost like not going to work at all; hence, work becomes a happy place despite the occasional pressures.  When work becomes a less stressful place, you will also notice that you and everyone you work with become more productive.

Less Becomes More

You’ve probably worked for or been around people who seem to work 24/7 and still end up not accomplishing much or failing at it that they always go back to square one, and the process starts all over again.

It seems that no matter how much hard work they put in, targets are not met, deadlines are not delivered, and they end up with more losses than profits.  However, people who are less stressed at work know how to designate.

Even if you’re boss or a regular staff member, designating or delegating certain tasks makes everything simpler and easier.  You not only end up doing less and avoiding overworking yourself, but you also have more time to do recreational activities.  After all, all work and no play is bad for your health.

Good Working Environment

One other thing that contributes greatly to people’s accomplishing more at work, or simply put, being more productive is a good working environment – literally, spiritually, emotionally, and mentally.

If your place of work is messy, hot, and such, and it makes you uncomfortable staying there for at least eight hours per day, chances are, you’re going because you need the money and nothing more, or you’re about to quit.

However, a clean and aesthetically pleasing work place is not enough.  A good working environment is more importantly dependent on the kind of people you work with and their characters.

A high-paying job isn’t worth much if you end up hating your boss at the end of the day, or you dread getting up each morning to go to work.  This will not only result in making you an unhappy employee, but there’s also a very big chance that you will not be as productive and creative as you should be.

In the end, to accomplish more without exerting yourself to your limits, your work and the work place should be something that you love.

Stress has devastating effects on you but if you apply the following tips in your day to day life, you will see a lot of improvement in your life. The first reaction when you will read the following suggested tips is “No… I don’t have time for this!!” but I still suggest you at least give them a shot.

Eliminate Stress method #1 - Express your feelingsThere is nothing wrong with expressing your feelings. Find someone that you trust and express your feelings, being it anger, worries, anxiety etc. There is nothing worst than bottling your feelings. This will make you feel lonely and tends to build up stress in you. It’s like trying to block a volcano… eventually enough pressure gets built up that will smash all the obstacles that it finds in its way.

Eliminate Stress method #2 - Accept things that you cannot change

There are some things that trouble you but there is nothing that you can do about. There is no point in worrying about such things since it will stress you. Just accept them as they are and try to live happy. Easier said than done but just remember that everybody has something (or a lot of things) that he or she wish to change. This might help you accept yours
Eliminate Stress method #3 - Forgive others. Our instinct tells us to not forgive but to take revenge

If you are hurt about something someone did to you, just spend sometime alone and find a way how you can forgive him or her. You will realise that after you forgive, you will find peace in your heart, making you feel much better. Thinking about how to take revenge will stress you out… definitely not worth it.

People who used to suffer from stress and applied the above techniques saw improvements in their life and helped them mitigate the effects of stress described in Dealing with Stress - Part 3 - Effects of stress on us.

A lot is said about what makes us stressed and how we can cope with stress but few articulate how stress affects us. The aim of this blog post is to give a glimpse of how stress is harmful and how much should we work to either eliminate it or at least compensate for it. Stress affects us:

• Emotionally such as anxiety, being moody or feeling sad without any particular reason
• Mentally such as inability to concentrate, forgetfulness, indecisiveness, apathy and hopelessness
• Behaviorally such as high consumption of alcohol, more immune to vices like smoking and gambling, insomnia, accident proneness, weight loss or gain problems.

The more stress increases the higher the probability of being affected by one of the above affects. Unfortunately there is nothing we can do to completely eliminate stress from our lives since we live in a stressful world. But fortunately there is something you can do to reduce stress… the next blog post gives tips of how you can deal with stress.

Stress is not something pleasant to experience hence everyone is always on the lookout for ways of how to eliminate stress. There are several ways how stress can be counterbalanced which we will go through in future blog posts. Meanwhile this blog post lists common stressful situations. The aim of this blog post is to make you aware of such stressful situations to if possible help you avoid them in the first place. Before you delve into ways how to eliminate stress, make sure that you are eliminating stressful situations in the first place. So here is the list of common situations that cause stress.

Extra commitments

It is a common misconception that the more commitments that we have the more we achieve. WRONG! Trying to do more than we are able to do and over committing ourselves is one of the major causes of stress. What happens is that we are happy at first with a lot of activities in our life. A few weeks down the line though, we feel like we cannot cope with all the work related with the commitments that we have. You will feel bad when you find yourself unable to cope with the work load causing stress which will further slow you down.

Procrastination

Delay stuff to a later time, possibly to the very last minute, is another common cause of stress. You think that by delaying stuff you will relax and enjoy life but in fact it’s the other way round. Apart from killing your productivity, procrastination stresses you since it will make you work extreme hours in order to make it just in time for your deadlines.

Difficult people

Some people simply enjoy making your life difficult. These people will always try to find things to criticise in order to let you down or make you give up on something that you believe in. Exposure to a lot of negative feedback creates a stressful environment for you to live in. Simply avoid difficult people and refuse to argue with them since it is a complete waste of time.

The three situations mentioned above are very common for everyone. Sensing stressful situations and avoiding them is the number one stress killer you can easily implement. In a future blog post I will be listing several tips which I suggest you take note off and act upon to counterbalance stress.

What is Stress?

The word ’stress’ is commonly associated with negative life situations. But stress can be caused by both negative and positive circumstances in your life. Fired from a job or the death of a loved one is considered to be stress by everyone. But the birth of a baby, a job promotion or a new relationship is not considered to be stressful by most of us. The proper meaning of the word stress is the effort required to adapt to changes in you life. These changes can be for your better or for your worse and can be changes that you chose to do or were simply imposed on you.

Why do we suffer stress?

Everyone suffers from stress. There is no human being that does not suffer from stress. The difference is that some people know how to deal with it and some do not. Stress is something hard wired in our nature. When we experience anxiety or fear our brain fires a chemical alarm which causes our nervous system to respond by releasing stress hormones. A very common and well known chemical contained in these stress hormones is adrenaline. These chemicals help your body push its limits in life or death situations. For instance, you will run faster and your reaction time will be shorter. Unfortunately our brain is not yet able to distinguish between different types of stress. For instance, the stress of a deadline does not require adrenaline like our ancestors used to need when running away from a tiger.

What are the effects of stress?

Stress has several effects, both physical and behavioural. Some of the physical effects stress has on us are:

1. Headaches or backaches
2. Muscle tension and stiffness
3. Diarrhoea or constipation
4. Nausea, dizziness
5. Insomnia
6. Chest pain, rapid heartbeat
7. Weight gain or loss
8. Frequent colds

Some of the behavioural effects are:

1. Moodiness
2. Agitation
3. Restlessness
4. Short temper
5. Irritability, impatience
6. Inability to relax
7. Feeling tense and “on edge”
8. Feeling overwhelmed
9. Sense of loneliness and isolation

How to eliminate stress?

As I said above, stress cannot be completely eliminated but fortunately enough there are ways that can counterbalance stress. First of all you should avoid stressful situations as much as possible. In future posts I will be publishing which are the most common stressful situations that we encounter in our lifes. When you sense such a situation just avoid them. For those stressful situations which are imposed on us I will be describing different ways how to deal with them to reduce your overall stress.

Stress is the opposite of relaxation. When we are relaxed and calm, our heart rate and breathing slow down, and our brain functions smoothly. When we are stressed our mind and body enter a heightened state of alert to handle the external situation causing the stress.

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The following tips will help you avoid, manage, and overcome stress to take control of your life and live better.

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