Even if your employees love their job, most likely, they occasionally feel stressed out. New emails keep coming to their inboxes, their managers demand impressive results weekly, and colleagues are always there for constant communication. Such multitasking, when a person, for example, is forced to search some information on the web while juggling other duties simultaneously, is extremely disturbing. Even lighting and air temperature in the office can become causes of stress. All these factors layer up and by now, your employees are probably suffering from a headache, anxiety and sleep troubles turning from side to side at night, unable to leave job-related problems behind.
However, no matter how easy it is to get stressed out throughout the day, your employees can relieve it without leaving the desktop. Here are some five ways to reduce stress, relax, raise mood and improve productivity at work.
- Writing down current issues
Whether your employees are worried about an upcoming important presentation or results of a future project, writing down issues that concern them will help reduce workplace stress and improve productivity. Anxiety worsens short-term memory consuming the power of your workers “CPU”. By writing down problems, your employees will stop thinking about them all the time. Instead, they will manage to identify the true sources of stress. As a result, the resources of their short-term memory will be released, and they will be able to act more efficiently when necessary.
- Turning off the monitor for 10 minutes
Monitors of computers and smartphones, TV screens attract our attention from the moment of awakening and before going to bed. The resulting syndrome of computer vision leads to eye fatigue, headache and neck pain, nausea, and increased anxiety and depression. Therefore, you should recommend your workers trying to switch off their monitors whenever possible. Instead of working on a given task for hours straight, they need to turn off the monitor, close the laptop and let the eyes rest for a while before getting back to work. Your workers can read a book or magazine, take a walk or get a cup of coffee and chat with a colleague. Alternatively, they can order essay online on CustomWriting.com if some of them are still pursuing a college degree.
- Having some snacks
We are often advised not to eat when dealing with stress, but sometimes, you can also indulge oneself with a delicacy without much damage to productivity. In fact, a healthy snack promotes a slight increase in blood sugar and, as a result, a good mood. The main thing for your workers is not to reach for a box of donuts but to choose food that has proven effective in dealing with pressure, such as berries, nuts, dark chocolate and oatmeal. Also, it is worth bearing in mind that one should eat slowly, enjoying each bite without running around with food.
- Doing meditation or exercising
Wondering how to manage stress at work? Recent studies have shown that a few minutes of meditation a day can have a significant impact on the level of stress. Moreover, meditation improves attention and intelligence and even increases the density of gray matter in the brain. Your employees can download a free meditation application, listen to meditation podcasts on iTunes or watch videos on YouTube to find a few moments of peace right in the workplace.
Another option is to do some physical activity. Most of the time, office workers spend sitting at the table in front of a computer screen – that is, straining the muscles of the neck and back. The situation can be remedied by regularly stretching the suffering parts of the body. Suggest that your workers make circular motions with shoulders (three times forward and backward). The good part about it is that this simple exercising can be done without getting up from the workplace.
- Keeping a gratitude journal
Do your workers have a gratitude journal? Do not rush to discard this idea, as keeping a gratitude journal showed a 27% reduction in stress levels in a group of Stanford University students, and recent studies at Yale and Columbia have shown that the use of a gratitude journal increases attention, receptivity and vigor, and also strengthens the immune system while reducing anxiety.
In conclusion, we want to say that psychologists recommend creating conditions in which, your employees would be comfortable working. In particular, it is necessary to focus on physical and hygienic working conditions, the temperature of the ambient air, the level of illumination, and air quality. If your workers are engaged in routine work, it is best to avoid any noise and vibrations. For many, it is important that their workload during the working day corresponds to a personal biological rhythm. Therefore, if it is more comfortable for your workers to work in the evening, then it would be ideal if they could adjust their schedule accordingly.
