Stress is the number one killer that negatively impacts both personal and professional lives. When stressed, productivity declines as it impairs clear thinking, self-control and temperament. To manage stress, it is important to understand its causes and assess issues' durations. Compartmentalizing work and life helps prevent stress buildup. Regular relaxation through activities enjoyed is crucial to recharge and gain a fresh perspective on challenges.

1. Learn to managing stress,
boost productivity

2. Stress is the number one killer of our times. It is an insidious emotion
that eats up all the happiness we need in life and at work. Because of
it, we are unable to perform at the levels we are supposed to. Our
own career prospects suffer because of this, as does the organization.
When a person is stressed, it is natural that the productivity levels
start dipping. This calls for ways to tackle stress, because it is always
better to find ways of dealing with it, rather than to let it overpower us
and make us succumb to it.

3. Effects of stress
When a person is stressed, it is a lot like being in an angry
state of mind. When our mind is angry, we hardly have
control over what we are saying and doing. The same
happens when we are stressed. When stressed, we are not
able to think with clarity. We allow unwanted expressions to
blurt out of the mind. And then, we start to lose our temper
at our colleagues, affecting the workplace. In addition,
many people also carry home the stress they build at work.
People who are stressed start to lose their temper at their
family or neighbors. They also become anxious, nervous
and irritable towards them. Because of this, both the
person’s professional and personal lives take a hit.

4. Although the reasons for stress are varied and depend
largely on the individual’s threshold of tolerance and ability
to respond creatively to stress; stress needs to be handled
tactfully. Some people behave a rather casual and carefree
outlook, because of which they don’t get stressed easily.
Others take their lives and careers too very seriously and
get disturbed at the slightest provocation. In such people
who already have a high level of stress, the triggers play
only a small role.

5. At a more personal level, continued stress can be
dangerous to the individual’s health. People who are very
stressed suffer from psychosomatic diseases, many of
which can be avoided or eliminated with the right approach
to stress. Even though stress is a major factor in the
personal and professional lives of people, many do not
know how to handle it.

6. Ways of dealing with stress
Place things in the right perspective: The first approach
to handling stress is to understand it. This is one of the
most important means to handling stress. We all have
different factors or reasons that cause stress. The basis to
handling stress is the realization that stress is always going
to be there all our lives. It is the way we approach it and
the way we handle it that determines how much we let that
stress impact us. Getting the right perspective of what
stress we are going through is the first step to handling
stress.

7. Some of the questions we can ask ourselves when
confronted with problems at work or at home could be: Is
this problem one of a short duration, or is it likely to stay
with me in the long run? How much time and energy is it
going to consume out of me? Do I need to devote the same
time and energy for it throughout its duration? Are there
ways by which I can find family or friends or colleagues to
take up some of the load without bothering them or
seeming as one who depends on them for resolving one’s
own issues?

8. Assess the stress rightly
Stress is the response we make to problems and issues
that we confront in our lives. Understanding the nature of
these issues is important. Some of these are of long term
duration, like what we need to plan for our lives and how
we intend to go about planning our careers. We know for
sure that these are long term plans and endeavors, for
which we need to work consistently. If there are some
hiccups or roadblocks along the way, we need to know how
to handle them without getting stressed or at least to the
extent that it clouds our thinking.

9. Further, some problems may be of midlevel duration. Stress
could be about finishing a long project. If the project is
going to last a few months or even years, there is no point
in getting stressed throughout the duration of the project,
because by the time the project gets completed, we would
often have become wrecks, depriving ourselves the joy of
the fruit of having completed that project. Taking issues
one at a time is an important means to stay afloat.
Planning a big party after the completion of a long project
may be a good idea, but not everyone may be willing to
wait for the whole duration, by when their stress levels
would have become too high. In the meantime, colleagues
can get together over a weekend or so and unwind by
taking a trip to the countryside, for instance.

10. Some problems are of short term duration. Many people for
instance get stressed about the prospect of having to reach
the workplace on time, battling their way through traffic. If
this is what is causing stress and a subsequent dip in the
productivity at work; it is important to get up earlier and
get ready for going to work. A few tasks need to be
prioritized or set aside in order to achieve a bigger one.
Taking the right approach to handling stress is an important
first step to finding a solution.

11. Learn to compartmentalize: This is a very important way
of dealing with stress. At some positions, it is impossible to
take time off work. Many people bring their work home. Many
a time, this may be necessary, but what such people can do is
to allocate times for handling this work when at home. This
allows them to give more time slots for the family, helping
them to destress to a large extent. Prioritizing work into the
more urgent, less urgent and not urgent or important is an
important means to handle stress, because this helps us
understand what we need to give our peak energies to and
what we need to handle at times when we are less energetic.

12. Keep unwinding at regular intervals: We need sleep
every few hours. Why? Because the brain is conditioned to
work at peak load for a while, after which it starts wearing
off. This is just how the cycle of a work schedule works. So,
it is important to keep relaxing at very short and frequent
intervals.
Doing small things like cycling, taking off from work to
attend a marriage, trekking or taking part in related
activities can go a long way in helping to take stress off. It
is well established that meditation is a great exercise that
relieves stress. Try doing it as often as you can. Deep
breathing, controlling the intake of nicotine and alcohol,
reading on topics that interest us, keeping the use of
phones at work at a minimum are all important destressing
steps.

13. Doing what you love doing is important to help take stress
out. Spending time with one’s child could be the ultimate
de-stressing factor for many people. For others, it could be
taking a swim. Combating stress is about finding ways to
deal with it in creative and constructive ways. Agreed, all
these do not solve the root causes of the stress, but doing
all these helps us to take the intensity off the stress. It
helps us to rejuvenate and refresh our minds, as a result of
which we could come back energized. This helps us take a
fresh approach and perspective to the stress on hand,
helping us to cope with it better.

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