Slowly Ease Back Into Your Work Before You Really Freak Out

Let’s redefine stress so it fits into how you handle your life. Stress is the tension that you create to keep pressure on yourself. We do this because it keeps us on our toes ready to quickly answer a manager’s question or finish a report before the deadline.

It’s hard to admit that our stress is our fault, but it really is. If a lion was tracking you in the middle of an open field this stress would cause your heartbeat to skyrocket, igniting your thought processes and forcing you to act. Let’s take a step back…If you weren’t afraid of dying or pain, and you really wanted to end your life, how do you think you would feel?

You would probably be cool as a cucumber because you would be willing to take the pain to end the pain.

Acute Stress

If you were afraid of being eaten by a lion you would run like the inner track star that has always been dying to come out. This acute stress occurs because your heart is pumping like crazy, trying to keep the blood flowing to all the vital muscles. You want to live so you find the best actions to make it happen.

We feel this acute stress because it’s fast, intense and takes over the whole body. This stress occurs when we are giving a big presentation, approaching a deadline, and other major events. It’s easy to recover from this type of stress because we have no choice. Our bodies crash, shutting down our brains and forcing us to relax.

Chronic Stress

The problem with chronic stress is that it’s soft and slow. It’s a small river wearing away the rock bed. We don’t even realize that our happiness is eroding away. Over time the constant pressure breaks us down.

We carry this burden with us wherever we go. We martyr ourselves out to the world, so the people in our lives know how much we give and give.

Imagine you had to stand for hours at a time. The first hour may be easy, but slowly the burden becomes too great and your muscles and ligaments can’t handle the constant strain. You would collapse from exhaustion. There is documentary to illustrate this point, which I tried to find on Google and YouTube, but was unable to remember the name of the movie. The film follows a competition to win a car. A group of contestants try to stand and keep their hand on a car for longer than the other participants, and as soon both hands are no longer touching the car they lose. It’s an excellent chance to watch people at their best and worst. They become delirious and eventually the pain is too much. All except for one, who looked like he was on the brink of letting go too.

Your chronic stress does the same thing to you. Imagine if you had to stand in one place for hours or even days; eventually you’d have to give in and rest. We all need leisure breaks to help us stabilize our productivity.

Ease Yourself Back In

After allowing yourself a break, you shouldn’t just jump back in at full speed. You need to ease yourself back into a slower pace of work. I know this is hard to do at some jobs. Management expects full speed ahead.

If you enjoy what you do then you have to be creative with your effort. Try to work in smaller batches and when each batch is done then take a small break: bathroom, water, or a nice conversation with a co-worker. One of my favorites is making all kinds of crazy faces into a mirror. It usually makes me laugh and relieves the internal pressure that I put on myself.

You have to find the pace at which you are comfortable working. Your flow will fluctuate, so be willing to plow through work if that’s the type of mood you are in. Just don’t be afraid to take a break when you need it. It’s all about being flexible with how you are feeling that day.

Do you take scheduled breaks or do you just go with how you feel?

When You Are Freaking Out Because You Are Stressed Read These Articles:

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Images courtesy of Clover_1

Filed under: Leisure Time, Stress ReliefTags: , , ,
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Just a Little More Effort for True Happiness

Kick BackWe all get a little lazy every now and again and that’s okay. There are some days I push too hard to accomplish so little. That’s when it’s better to just take a lazy day.

 

One of the secrets to your productivity is to understand when these days occur and how to use them to your advantage. If you keep pushing too hard then you won’t get anything done. Just stop and take a long break, surf the net or take a nap and come back when your mind is ready to go.

 

Although, if you feel this way too often, you’ll never get anything done. The trick is to understand the routine of your emotions. If you are always a slow starter then work with these feelings. I usually start work at 9am, which means I actually get rolling around 9:30, but to trick myself I sometimes jump on the computer at 8:30 to do a quick little task. I tell myself it will only take five minutes. Before I know it, I’m sucked in and I’m off and running, accomplishing great work.

 

Tricking myself into starting a half hour early helps me get an early jump on a busy day.

 

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The blogs around the globe are improving on a daily basis. It’s amazing how ZenHabits has grown. I remember reading it when it had a few thousand subscribers. Leo wanted desperately to quit his job and give his time over to his true passion, giving his readers great content. He wrote an article that breaks down the simple habits of a truly happy person.^

 

 

Gretchen Rubin also writes about happiness over at The Happiness Project, so many great articles that I become happier just thinking about them.

 

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We all make mistakes that can affect the rest of our lives. It’s how we deal with these mistakes that separates the optimists from the pessimists. Over at Hunter Nuttall’s blog… I loved his explanation of how to deal with life altering choices. He wrote about Dr. Cox from the TV show Scrubs and his major mistake that cost lives. Doctors, Policemen, and Politicians face these major decisions throughout their career. How do they cope with a mistake? How do they move on and rediscover their happiness? How do you forget and move on?

 

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I read an article over at the Small Business Branding that made me look at my own life. We’ve all heard the phrase we need to go the extra mile to get ahead at work. The cool angle that Bill Hogg found was that it doesn’t matter if you fix the problem or not, what matters is that you try your hardest. When we try our hardest we command respect because we are putting forth tremendous energy. We may not always get it right, but people will see that we are trying to go that extra mile. When they keep witnessing this effort they will be more willing to give us that promotion or the project that we really want (well most of the time).

 

^ Correction – The original version of this post gave credit to Gretchen for Leo’s article on Zen habits The Only Guide to Happiness You’ll Ever Need.

 

 

Related Links that Continue Along the Same Themes:

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Image courtesy of sashamd

Filed under: Career Fulfillment, Leisure Time, Positive ThinkingTags: , , ,
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