Real Relaxation by Konstantin Koss

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Do you want to know how to avoid THIS:

Learning to relax in the workplace begins right here. I admit, the above was a rhetoric question. What you just saw was the exact reason why I am blogging day in and day out. If you see yourself in that video, you might want to read:

• The Top 10 Tips to Relax in the Workplace

• Understanding Stress in the Workplace

• Get Rid of Stress in the Workplace

Office stress, be gone!

Konstantin Koss

Popularity: 6% [?]

Tags: Featured Video, Office Stress, Relax in the Workplace, Stress in the Workplace, Workplace

With all the talk about stress in the workplace, today let’s have a little fun look at what jobs you could take on that would hardly put you under much pressure.

Stress in the workplace, or even at home, has gained so much popularity among people around the world. Stress has even earned the title of being “The 20th Century Disease” as coined by the United Nations in 1992 and referred to as a “World Wide Epidemic” by the World Health Organization.

The reason for its increasing popularity is the increasing number of stress-related health problems such as irritation, depression, headaches, migraines and even life-threatening chronic diseases like heart attacks. More and more people are suffering from these stress-related health problems, sometimes without even realizing that they are caused by the stress they get from work or from personal problems around the house.

Some people find ways to de-stress by going to the gym and working out; some go dancing or clubbing every Friday after a week of long hard work; some attend yoga classes; some still try to switch to less stressful jobs. While stress has become synonymous with jobs and people think that there is no job that does not entail stress, there are still jobs out there that cause low or no stress at all if you are really very good at it. To give you an idea here’s a list of low stress jobs and why are they considered to be such.

Dog Walker

I guess the number one low stress job out there is the dog walker. In every busy city, there are a lot of dog owners that do not have time to spend enough time with their dogs and give the necessary walking exercise once in a while. So more and more dog owners hire dog walkers to give their dogs the time that they could not give.

This job is low stress because all you have to do is walk dogs at the park. How hard could walking and playing with dogs be? In fact, it could even help you de-stress from your own cares at home. Scientific studies prove that taking care of pets, or even just caressing the furry friends, relax and soothe the tired mind.

Pastry Chef

Second in my list of low stress jobs is being a pastry chef. Baking and designing pastries is a form of art. Creating artwork also has a soothing effect on the one working on it. Although pastry making entails a lot of hard work and sometimes even odd working hours, it gives satisfaction and a sense of fulfillment for the chefs. That is if you are artistic and creative and you love the arts.

If you love what you are doing, there is only little room for frustration and irritation, hence less stress. Besides, who could get stressed in a workplace smelling of sugar, butter and cinnamon?

Video clerk

Another top low stress and even fun job is the video clerk, where you can watch movies while doing your job. You also get to talk and give customers piece of advice or suggestions about which movies are good and which are not. In this business, customers turn to you as an expert of movies hence employers allow their staffs to watch movies while working. It would ensure customer loyalty if the video clerk serving them knows a lot about movies and get to interact with them meaningfully.

What more, since store hours do not begin until 10 am, you can extend sleep and not worry about beating the morning rush as most people are already in their work places during this hour. You get to hang around cool people discussing movies and music.

Massage or Physical Therapist

Since this job is centered on making people relaxed and calm, the therapist is trained well on the art of relaxation. As an expert therapist, you can apply the exercises you advise to other people to yourself as well. Of course, you have to practice what you teach.

Besides how can giving back rubs to patients or clients be stressing? Sure, as a trained massage therapist let me tell you that giving a good massage can really strain your muscles, but did you notice that you usually feel more relaxed after a workout. The same principle applies here, you just have to learn how to keep your back straight during the massage.

Also, these sessions are usually done in a relaxing room where the lights are dim and with soothing and relaxing background music.

These are but a few of the many low stress jobs out there. You just have to be not too picky. After all, high-profile careers are the ones that are highly stressful

Additional External Resources:

• JIST, America's Career Publisher, Announces Top Low-Stress Jobs

- To help people in the world of work avoid stress in their careers, Laurence Shatkin and The Editors at JIST identify and describe the best low-stress jobs and provide guidance for how to decrease work-related stress. …

• Are These Jobs Really Low Stress?

- I have one of these careers, and it’s not low stress! I’d only identify some of them as lower stress jobs. I have one of these careers, and it’s pretty low in stress. No, this list isn’t accurate in evaluating the stress levels of jobs. …

• Workplace Stress Management

- A link between workplace stress and physical or emotional problems exist. Early signs of job stress include: sleep disturbances, stomach problems, trouble in concentration, irritability, headache, low morale, and poor affairs with …

Popularity: 16% [?]

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Stress in the workplace is no longer new to us. Everybody in the office, or any workplace for that matter, experience it; beginning from the executives down the rank and file staff. No one is spared from it. But what is stress really?

What It Is

Stress is the way our bodies and minds respond to the demands and responsibilities put upon them. It is a part of any job. It is a part of our everyday life. In the workplace, stress is manifested when the demands of the job and challenges it entails increase.

Stress is how our body reacts to these things. It is what drives us to do the job and finish it right away to meet the deadline but have it done well. The heightened tension gives us an adrenaline rush that allows us to push ourselves to the limit. Oftentimes, it is after the work is done or when the crisis is resolved that we feel the exhaustion. Then we feel relieved.

A little stress from time to time is good for the body and mind for it is some sort of exercise for the brain to think of solutions to the problem the shortest time possible. It is also some sort of exercise for the body when it needs to do the running and walking around in doing the work. This is when people feel more alive, because they are doing something important; hence, they feel important. So, a little stress is actually good for you.

When Stress Becomes Excessive

So when do stress becomes bad for you? When stress becomes excessive, it becomes bad for your health. As the old adage says, “anything in excess is bad”. Everything has to be in moderation.

Excessive stress can trigger emotional as well as physical responses that may be harmful the person experiencing it and to the organization he belongs to as well. Excessive stress may manifest in the individual or employee in the form of

• headache,
• uneasy sleep,
• upset stomach,
• irritability,
• inability to focus,
• and poor treatment and relations with colleagues, family and friends.

These manifestations of stress affect the productivity of the employee in the workplace. It may result to absenteeism and sometimes insubordination; hence, affecting the company’s overall performance in the long run. It could lead to conflict and more tension in the workplace

And worst of all, stress can also lead to serious chronic diseases such as musculoskeletal conditions, cardiovascular disease and even psychological disorders. There are strong evidence from scientific studies that workplace stress does contribute to the development of chronic health problems that were mentioned.

So how does workplace stress become excessive? Workplace stress, or better known as job stress, increases as the demands and challenges of the work increases. When these demands and challenges become excessive and the employee’s ability to handle them or the satisfaction of the employee with the compensation of his effort for the job do not match, that’s when stress becomes excessive.

For example, an average employee is given too much work beyond his mental ability, or just impossible to accomplish at the given time, then stress becomes excessive. Or if the employee given a difficult or complex task is only receiving minimum wage, he would be dissatisfied with it but is unable to voice his opinion so he would be stressed over that fact. This is also when stress becomes excessive and harmful to the employee and to the company as well.

Other causes of stress are:

• tedious tasks;
• long work hours with low pay;
• unhealthy working environment;
• unreasonable work demands;
• not enough rest breaks;
• vague job descriptions and expectations;
• multiple superiors;
• conflicting work demands;
• lack of participation or voice in the decision-making;
• unfair policies;
• ineffective communication flow;
• instability of the job;
• lack of proper transition for changes;
• frequent personnel turnover;
• No or poor chance of career advancement;
• difficult superiors;
• bullying or harassment by superiors;
• and unfair competition among staff and other conflicts.

These are but a few of the many causes of stress in the workplace. And unfortunately these are always present in every company.
For this reason, work is sadly always associated with stress. Everybody thinks that every job is stressful.

Well, as I have said earlier, it is just normal to be stressed from time to time. However, one should learn to adapt to the work environment so as to reduce stress in the workplace when it borders on becoming excessive.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Tags: Stress, Stress in the Workplace, Stress Management, Workplace

Stress in the workplace is one of the top topics when it comes to stress-management because oddly enough most stress occurs in the workplace environment. To understand that we first have to understand …

The Primal Roots Of Stress

The animal in us humans has a basic paranoia build in. Have you ever tried to pet an unknown cat and it ran away? It’s basic self-protecting paranoia. And as evolved we humans want to see ourselves, we still run on the same basic “operating system”.

Stress is the basic fight or flight reaction that gets triggered when we see ourselves in danger.

This is key!

Different Kinds Of Stress

You have surely heard of that one before. There are two kinds of stress: constructive stress (eustress) and destructive stress (distress). Constructive stress is very healthy in the workplace since it gives you a drive towards success, keeps you excited, and can lead to a creative state of flow.

The primal reaction reaction to danger is what is referred to as distress. The human biology doesn’t care anymore about getting any kind of work done, it just wants to fight or flight.

That’s when you keep thinking about what a prick your co-worker/boss is and can’t concentrate on your work anymore.

Out Of The Stress-Consciousness

Now I could give you the same old … (cowdung) advice that you get anywhere concerning stress-management. Take a vacation, spend time with your family, work out, volunteer for charity work, get together with your friend and eat healthy.

Poof, all your problems will be gone. Next client please. (…as if …)

Sure, that advice has its place and you will feel much better after a good workout, for example. But let’s not kid ourselves, the next day it will be the same old story … again!

Fact is: You will never get out of being stressed by other people or circumstances in your workplace as long as you percieve them as being danger.

Even if this is unconscious.

The perception of danger is the turning point of eustress (productivity) crossing over into distress.

Making The Unconscious Conscious

Now is the time for some good self-honesty. And this is where it gets hard translating personal coaching into online advice. Let me try it anyway.

1. Remember the last time you got into some seriously uncomfortable stress in the workplace
2. Do what you would do naturally and review the major troubles in that situation
3. Now let’s shift your focus from the situation or person (well, where did I know from that it was outside of yourself …) to yourself. Which of your beliefs play into this trouble?
4. What are you afraid of? If you don’t know, just guess. What could you maybe afraid of? Make a list of possibilities without judging. It’s not necessary. When the situation occurs next time you will be able to point more and more in the direction of which of your guesses was the most accurate. Trust me on that one.
5. Really picture in your mind what the worst possible outcome of the situation may be.
6. What would you do given the circumstance that the worst case scenario really happened? Could you deal with that in any way?
7. What is the most probable outcome of the situation?

Our goal is to get more and more of our common sense into our animalistic fear-reactions. For example, when the stress arises from meeting a deadline or you will loose your job, this can be a very scary situation to be in.

But the only way to get out of being paralyzed by the stress ahead is in fact to get less outcome-dependent. This is the big irony of the universe since independence from the outcome usually produces better outcomes.

Don’t just skim the above steps and go “Yeah, yeah. Done that”. Take. Your. Time. and really do this analysis. I can promise you it will get you further in the long run than any vacation-workout-volunteering-quickfix.

To combine productivity and relaxation, simply avoid destructive stress in the workplace, which proves to be a much harder task than it might sound. Eustress is the flow you are looking for to happily being productive at work.

Sincerely,

Konstantin Koss

PS: Feel free to contact me concerning your specific issues IF you’ve done the above and can report me your results.

(Photo by meyshanworld)

Technorati Tags: Stress in the Workplace, Workplace, Stress Management, Stress, Distress, Stress Release

Icerocket Tags: Stress in the Workplace, Workplace, Stress Management, Stress, Distress, Stress Release

Popularity: 13% [?]

Tags: Distress, Eustress, Fear, Fight or Flight, Flow, Longterm Success, Relaxation, Stress, Stress in the Workplace, Stress Management, Stress Release, Workplace