When the economy is hot, jobs are plentiful and salaries increase, you can look forward to growing your career, feel confident to pursue new opportunities and take much-needed time off to enjoy life. When you are in a challenging economy, it’s different. You are concerned about a possible recession, losing your job and wrestling with making ends meet because of high inflationary costs.
It’s natural to feel uncomfortable and uncertain about the future. The fear of losing your job creates anxiety and stress, leading to mental and emotional health issues. Since you’re worried about holding onto your job, you feel compelled to put in long hours, cancel the vacation, forsake your allotted paid time off to look good to the boss, and curry favor to remain employed.
What To Do About Lessening Your Work-Related Stress
Job insecurity can become all-consuming. To make matters worse, after a companywide layoff, remaining workers get burdened with the tasks and projects of those that were downsized. Your workload can sometimes feel overwhelming, while your anxiety level shoots through the roof.
Instead of quietly quitting, acting your wage or doing the bare minimum, here’s what you can do to manage your stress.
Make A List
For starters, it helps to compile a to-do list at night to keep you on track for the following day. Writing down your uncompleted tasks decreases how much time you spend worrying about them. Michael Scullin, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor University, spoke about the importance of writing a priority list with Psychology Today, “It seems that unfinished tasks rest at what we call a heightened level of cognitive activation.” Scullin added, “With our day-to-day lives and work schedule, unfinished tasks pile on one another and create this cognitive activation that’s difficult to set aside—unless, of course, you write about it.”
Be Good To Yourself
Practice the art of acceptance, recognizing that you can only do so much of what is within your control and realize that some things are just not within your control. Instead of constantly worrying and ruminating over work, focus on activities you enjoy that will help you relax. Working out at the gym, going for a run, doing yoga or meditation can have a profound effect on your mind and body. Physical fitness and mindfulness exercises can help you remain calm, boost your mood, improve memory and relieve stress.
Additionally, a great mind hack is asking yourself how likely the worst-case scenario you are worried about will happen.
Set Boundaries
Disconnecting from work is mission-critical to your mental health and emotional well-being. You must set work-life boundaries to help ease into having some downtime. Unplugging from work is necessary to recharge and relax from long periods of running at full speed. That time away will help boost your productivity and engagement. You owe it to your mental health to take micro-breaks throughout the day to keep sane.
Source: Forbes
