Stress in the Workplace

Stress at work..... what can I say other than yes, it happens every day and it happens to every one. I can speak from experience here, as I have been working for over 30 years with all kinds of people and in all kinds of environments. Here is where a lot of people go wrong.... they start out at a job and everything seems great. After a while people get friendly with each other, which is a good thing, but what is not a good thing is to give out too much information about yourself or your personal life with co-workers. It is so easy to feel like everyone is your "BFF" and to talk about EVERYTHING imaginable. But what we don't realize is that co-workers are just that, people that you "work" with. Yes, we spend more time with our co-workers than we do with our families most of the time, so it makes for a recipe for disaster. It is hard for most of us to believe that these so called friends/co-workers would use any of our shared information about our personal lives to their advantage, but believe me....it happens all the time. Work is work and it's all business to most people so they will think nothing of throwing you under the bus to move up the ladder at work. This kind of stress hits you at a personal level and can really rock your foundation since you have to spend 5 days a week for 8 hours a day with these very people.

This is what chronic stress is all about. Think chronic = constant. Constant stress is present because you have to go to work every day and you have to see these same people every day which makes it chronic. If there is stress or tension over an issue, you cannot get away from it, as you have to face it each day. Every day that goes by and the issue does not get resolved will cause your stress level to increase and affect your health.

So many physical health problems occur from stress and most people blame their body aches and pains on other things, when in reality these physical health problems stem from stress and are made worse by the chronic nature of the ongoing issues.

So what is that answer? We all need to learn stress relieving techniques to cope with daily work stress such as yoga, meditation, daily exercise, vent with a friend or life coach, get a massage or listen to music. The ultimate resolution however, is to confront the issue at work and resolve it so that you can move forward and allow going to work to be a happy experience and not such a dreadful one.