We spend over half our week and most of our adult life at work. When work becomes problematic it can easily trigger stress symptoms that can take over your life. If we do not take steps to manage work stress it can lead to burnout. If you have ever wondered how to manage work stress, mindfulness is a really effective and simple method, anyone can learn.
What causes work stress?
Stress means different things do different people. We can get stressed because of one particular event or an ongoing worry. But stress also has a specific meaning i.e. “when the pressures on a person exceed their ability to cope”.
We can experience work stress or burnout either because of having too much on at work or because of dealing with complicated situations.
When we are busy, or are being challenged at work, our bodies react as if we are at “threat”. When we experience a threat, our bodies have an inbuilt involuntary response. This is known as “fight and flight” system and we have evolved with it.
In pre historic the “fight and flight” system came in useful when protecting ourselves against dangerous animals. Our heart would beat faster which meant that we could run quicker.
Our muscles would tense to help us fight. When we experience this in relation to work stress it just feels unpleasant and anxiety provoking!
Experiencing the symptoms of fight and flight long term has a negative physical and mental impact which can then lead to burnout.
There are lots of symptoms of stress.
- Unable to sleep
- Tense muscles
- Rushing around
- Unable to switch off
- Heart beating quicker than usual or breathing more rapid
- Irritable at home or co workers
- low mood.
- Racing thoughts
- Shallow breathing and/or panic feelings
How Mindfulness Can Help Reduce Work Stress
Mindfulness is clinically proven to reduce stress and prevent burnout. It can help you manage work stress in a number of ways.
Body and Breath Awareness
One of the most powerful ways mindfulness can help reduce work stress if through body and breath awareness. When work stress hits our body we are not aware of it so we don’t know how to stop it.
When you start being more mindful you can notice, for example, tightness in your muscles following a busy morning. Or shallow breathing when you get home from work. Increasing awareness of your breath and body means you can take steps to relax them. This disrupt the endless vicious cycles!
Space from Unhelpful Thoughts
When we are under the “threat” of work stress our brain reacts by making us think more about the source of the threat.
So if you are having a busy time at work, rather than being able to switch off at home, the mind will keep going over the days events to help you prepare to tackle the “threat”.
Unfortunately thinking about a situation rarely improves it and just makes us feel worse!
When you are experiencing work stress and mentally consumed by your job, mindfulness can help you be more present. It does this by training your mind to be more focussed on what is going on in the moment and let go of the events passed or that have not come yet.
Increase Kindness
Being self critical or not feeling good enough will increase our chances of feeling work stress. In turn, when a persons stress response is triggered we are more likely to beat ourselves up and not meet our needs.
Therefore, self compassion has been found to be very effective for work stress and our overall wellbeing.
Mindfulness is closely related to self compassion. When we are mindful we are more likely to be able to notice that we are struggling and take a step back from self critical thoughts.
But we can also give ourselves space to ask ourselves what do we need to deal with the situation more helpfully or offer ourselves encouraging words rather than critical ones.
Using mindfulness at work does not have to mean finding extra time to meditate. In fact there are lots of ways we can be mindful as we go about our busy day, even when sat at our desk.
If you would like some help to learn mindfulness to manage work stress contact me for my services.
