Feeling stressed in the workplace is inevitable at times, especially if you have a heavy workload or feel a lot of pressure in your position in the company. The stress you experience in the workplace can also be due to various other factors, like an unhealthy environment, unjust wages, or unfriendly workmates.

Stress can manifest and affect you in several ways, both physically and mentally. You might develop poor eating habits or an unhealthy diet, lose or gain weight drastically, and have dull skin. As for your mental health, you might develop anxiety or even depression. All these things could cause you to burn out easily, and workdays may become harder for you as you start to dread going to your workplace.

It’s important to know how to de-stress and blow off steam so that the negative feelings don’t pile up. To help you, here are five ways you can deal with stress in the workplace.

1. Initiate Wellness Activities for Your Workplace

If stress levels are high in the workplace in general and your employer has been looking for ways to help employees with this, you could work with management to start workplace wellness activities. This can be done by creating groups that organize and engage in specific activities, such as running marathons or participating in mental health seminars. This way, you can aid fellow employees and yourself in unwinding and leading a better lifestyle, both physically and mentally.

If your company has too many employees or if no one is willing to handle the organizing, you could also convince management to work with a partner to create a corporate wellness program for the employees. If you’re uncertain how to go about that, you can find out here.

2. Conduct Ice Breakers or Games During Meetings

When you conduct meetings, you could allot some time for a short game or ice-breaking activity. This can help keep things light and build camaraderie among your teammates. To encourage healthy competition or more interest in these activities, you could even set small prizes or incentives for the winners of these games.

These activities can help you and your teammates build rapport with each other, and they’re also a great way to relieve stress and unwind a bit after a meeting. It will be good for your wellness to socialize and take part in something unrelated to work, even for only a while. This way, your workday doesn’t have to be all work and no play.

3. Make Time to Work Out

Though it may be tough to motivate yourself to work out, you can never go wrong with a quick exercise session. Not only does it allow you to have a healthier lifestyle, but it also causes your body to release endorphins, which triggers positive feelings. It’s good for your physical and mental well-being, and doing it regularly allows you to relieve the stress you might be feeling from work.

If your schedule doesn’t allow for lengthy workouts, you could still get some light exercise in. For example, you could take a short jog or walk around your neighborhood in the morning before leaving for the office. Or if you’re working from home, you can do a quick yoga session while on break.

4. Take Breaks

Even if you feel you can’t be away from work too long during the workday, you should ensure that you take breaks instead of powering through the whole day. Even a short five-minute break is better than none at all. You can take the time to relax, grab a bite to eat, or simply look out the window to relax your eyes after looking at a screen for too long. Otherwise, you might get burnt out more easily, as you may feel overworked and exhausted.

It’s important to note that this tip doesn’t only apply to individual workdays; it’s crucial to take the occasional day off as well. Even if you don’t have a trip planned, when you feel that you’re starting to get burnt out or exhausted, you could opt to take a day off just to rest at home and reset your system.

5. Get Enough Sleep

If you’re trying to catch up on backlogs or trying to get ahead of your workload, you might be tempted to work late into the night on some days. However, that might do you more harm than good. If you don’t get enough sleep, workdays will be much harder for you; you might find yourself feeling more irritable, and your work performance might decline, which will result in you having to work even harder to make up for it.

On the other hand, if you make sure to sleep early and get enough rest, you’ll have enough energy to take on the next day, as well as improved productivity and concentration. Thus, getting enough sleep is a better way of staying on top of work than depriving yourself of sleep to catch up on work.

Conclusion

Feeling stressed from work is a normal occurrence, but it’s important to know how to deal with the stress so you don’t risk burning out. Even though good work performance is a priority, you shouldn’t compromise your mental and physical health to achieve it. Hopefully, with the tips listed above, this article has given you a good idea of how to combat stress and take care of yourself to ensure you remain at your best.