Best Herbs For Stress

The modern world is work focused and employment based. We spend the majority of our waking hours at the workplace and this has its own benefits and problems. One of the most common of these problems is workplace stress. This is a chronic ailment caused by conditions that negatively affect your performance and overall well-being. It can also affect an individuals’ psychological and physical health, as well as organization’s effectiveness. Workplace stress is affecting a whole spectrum of the population ranging from doctors to plumbers

Workplace stress is now recognized globally as a condition that can affect all categories of workers, in all types of jobs. Stress is a source of tension and frustration that may arise through a number of interrelated influences on behavior, including the individual, group, organizational and environmental factors. This usually leads to loss of concentration, sleeplessness, and it can also increase the risk for illness, back problems, accidents, and lost time. Workplace stress is now one of the most prevalent reasons for lost working days, which hinders the progress of the organization as well as the individual.

There are various reasons for workplace stress and one of them is management. This usually happens when managers behave in an authoritarian way, offer no constructive support or advice to the work force or deny promotional opportunities to the deserving members of the company. This is when employees become frustrated or cynical towards the organization. Another reason for workplace stress is overbearing or jealous work colleagues. Office gossip can be harmless fun if kept within reason but if it is constantly directed towards one particular person then it can be quite damaging and lead to a lot of workplace stress for the person concerned.

There are steps that organizations can take to prevent or minimize the effects of workplace stress, so that they have more contented and happier employees. Some of the ways to achieve this is to make sure that your workforce have a voice and are heard, they are aware of their importance to the organization and are seen as unique and exceptional. Some of the policies that can help towards this are to include flexi-time, working from home, stress coaching, on the job support, keeping jobs open during sick leave, provision of quiet rooms, exercise provision, training initiatives and social activities.

Workplace stress can also be caused because of the work place atmosphere, for instance noisy, dirty, messy areas can all contribute towards job stress. It is therefore a good idea to keep the work areas clean and tidy to have a healthy, relaxed and stress free working environment.

Employees can also contribute towards minimizing and preventing workplace stress. Worker s should refrain from harassment or bullying. They should not tease, insult or even threaten others due to their sex, religion or race. Under no circumstances should they spread malicious gossip in order to destroy another’s good name.

By working together, employees and management can minimize and prevent a lot of workplace stress. Organizations should always be looking for ways that lead to a workforce that is happy, healthy and therefore more productive.

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Managing workplace stress is the same as managing driving stress or parenting stress or marital stress, since stress is a physiology which happens inside me after my Central Nervous System responds to a perception/thought I have about the external world.

Here is an example I use in my domestic violence classes. Imagine buying the winning lottery ticket, and saying to yourself, “The state has cheated me, it is not enough!”

That thought will trigger a stress hormone filled body, when most people would fill their bodies with eustress hormones, maybe even joy.

If I were hunting for my next meal, and suddenly a saber tooth tiger leaps toward me, I need to have a tremendously fast response time (perhaps four times faster than I can blink my eyes) in order to save my life, because a saber tooth tiger has greater physical assets than I do. Faster, stronger, meaner, ect.

In the olden days, if I and my teammates either got away from the saber tooth tiger or killed it, then we would rest and clear the neurotransmitters and hormones of the stress response from our body.

So we see the stress response was not meant to be turned on continually to help me produce more widgets, which is how we use it today, the stress response was meant to supply a burst of survival energy, and then I rested.

John Gottman,Ph.D. in his marital workshop describes how detrimental this burst of stress hormones, which he calls diffuse physiological arousal, (DPA) can be when it gets cued in marital conflict.

The same detriment happens when DPA gets cued at work. I perceive a facial expression, or a tone of voice, from a co-worker, customer, a superior, and how many of us have made ourselves really angry over an e-mail, by interpreting those flashing pixels on the computer screen as about our talents and resources or the lack thereof?

A very important aspect of workplace stress management is to understand that my stress response will happen very fast, and it will be in response to non-verbal communication, facial expressions, a tone of voice, a gesture, and the physiology in my body happens so fast that I may be flooded with adrenalin and cortisol faster than I can create words, so workplace stress management has to happen just as fast, or as close to that fast as I can manage.

(Ever heard of Paul Ekman,Ph.D.? Ekman says that we can respond to a look of contempt, even a very subtle look of contempt, in 1/25th second, which is about 2 and 1/2 times as fast as I can blink my eyes. Those of you who parent have seen this in yourselves when your kids look at you like as if you were really unintelligent).

I use the analogy in my anger management and domestic violence classes that your inner physiology needs to be managed heart beat by heart beat, because if your heart stops, there is no need to worry about workplace stress management anymore is there?

Is it possible to manage your physiology that effectively?

Yes it is, and the cheapest tool is deep breathing. If you have ever watched a newborn breath, they breath all the way into their belly, making it move up and down, which keeps their interior chemistry DHEA based rather than adrenalin based, broadly speaking.

If we train ourselves to remember deep breathing frequently, we will be able to cue up that response as frequently as our computer monitors need us to, and we will actually open our higher perceptual centers for excellent brainstorming.

If we forget our deep breathing, in about 1/25th second, I will be throwing my computer, and if throwing my computer monitor does not burn up my stress hormones, then I may throw my neighbors computer monitor, and so on.

Workplace Stress Management Back-up Tool….

If I forget my deep breathing, and decide to keep my stress physiology going for awhile, is there a back-up tool that I and the folks around me can use to relax?

Try heart rate variability biofeedback, which is an easily learned biofeedback process that feels good.

In fact, everyone at your workplace could learn heart rate variability biofeedback and everyone could conceivably get on the same heart beat and stay there, which would sure change the nature of the work place, could it not?

Heartmath is based on recent discoveries about the heart’s own affiliative and cooperative nervous system.

Not too long ago, no one knew the heart had its own nervous system, nor did anyone know that the heart and a coherent heart beat could impact the brain in my head so powerfully.

But a coherent heart beat which I can learn to cue on any give heart beat does keep every cell in my body, and any body doing heart rate variability biofeedback on the same ‘beat”, and a dazzling kind of team work emerges.

In fact, the team or workplace heart beat begins to take on a life of its own, and folks start to smile a lot more, absenteeism lowers, resignations slow, customer service ratings go up, and staff Doctor visits slow.

Anyone ready for a coherent New Year?

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