Weight Loss Day 54

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Day 54

 

Workplace and stress

Work can often feel like it is the all-consuming force that the rest of our existence simply revolves around. Work is why we get up early in the morning and often go home late at night. Work is what consumes much of our thoughts, our time, and our priorities. We need to have jobs as part of our sense of purpose, so we’re not sitting around twiddling our thumbs, and naturally to pay the bills and hopefully have a little left over for the things we enjoy. Work uses and develops our talents, and supports our family's needs and wants. So often though, work is also where we tend to get stressed out, causing emotional strain within ourselves that doesn’t just magically switch off when we leave at the end of the day.

Workplaces can involve the stress of deadlines, feelings of inadequacy, internal politics and relational struggles, difficult people your forced to work with, having to work under the authority of someone you don’t respect, maybe whose values are far different from your own. It really is a tough place to be at times.

It is in that place where making the right choices for ourselves can feel to hard, when we find ourselves just surviving rather than thriving.

 

The long hours, the deadlines, the conflict, the threats of being laid-off, and workplace bullying, all can cause harmful emotional and physical responses. These things can happen whenever there is a conflict between job demands and working with other people. We often feel that we don't have any control of the situation and so naturally this leads to stress.

Stress produces strain, disrupts our equilibrium, and it is the source of any number of emotional, physical, economic and social problems.

 

The irony at times, is the very things that we can do to help us manage and cope with these situations, end up being the opposite of what we actually do.

• Instead of drinking water, having an apple, or a healthy meal, we eat the chocolate, the burger and fries, and drink more caffeine.
• Instead of resting and allowing our body to recover physically and emotionally, we watch TV late into the evening, or get shallow sleep through poor eating and drinking habits prior to bed.
• Instead of going for a walk or exercising, we feel run down, and just crash on the couch, likely eating poorly at the same time.

The list goes on.

Our actions are often counter-intuitive. We want to feel better, find stress relief, yet make choices that completely undermine that outcome and actually compound the issue further.

 

If you are finding stress at work or at home is making your day to day 10 Week Challenge choices harder to maintain, take a few moments now to at least focus on a few of the key choices you can make, and take control of those.

• You can drink water regularly throughout the day.
• You can make sure you eat 2 pieces of fruit a day
• You can get up and move regularly, even if it’s only for short periods each time

 

Keep adding to what you can control, and keep taking control of it. You may not be able avoid the stress in every area of your life right now, but you can at least find some wins in other areas along the way.

 

Stress management strategy #1: Avoid unnecessary stress
Not all stress can be avoided, and it’s not healthy to avoid a situation that needs to be addressed. You may be surprised, however, by the number of stressors in your life that you can eliminate.

Stress management strategy #2: Alter the situation
If you can’t avoid a stressful situation, try to alter it. Figure out what you can do to change things so the problem doesn’t present itself in the future. Often, this involves changing the way you communicate and operate in your daily life.

Stress management strategy #3: Adapt to the stressor
If you can’t change the stressor, change yourself. You can adapt to stressful situations and regain your sense of control by changing your expectations and attitude.

Stress management strategy #4: Accept the things you can’t change
Some sources of stress are unavoidable. You can’t prevent or change stressors such as the death of a loved one, a serious illness, or a national recession. In such cases, the best way to cope with stress is to accept things as they are. Acceptance may be difficult, but in the long run, it’s easier than railing against a situation you can’t change.