Work stress and the economy today

Many of us are stressed about work and how the economy will affect our jobs.  Work stress and anxiety are on the increase and many of us are suffering because of the uncertainty of losing our jobs or losing income because of a cut in hours etc.   Losing our job can be a challenging crises in our lives and we may be affected by many emotions including sadness, anger and anxiety. Frustration can also be experienced while trying to find a new job or with job agencies or even with family and friends who don’t really understand what you are going through emotionally.

Some of these potential sources of stress include:

• Role conflict
• Role ambiguity
• Working relations
• Overload
• Control (or lack of it)
• Feedback (or lack of it)
• Support from colleagues (or lack of it)
• Uncertainty over job future

Work stress and pressure anxiety may come from doing extra hours just so you can keep your job and this puts not only stress on you, but your family, your friends and your lifestyle.  You don’t have the time you had before for leisure, being a parent or a loving spouse or friend.  It may be that you don’t like what you do in your job or the people you work with.  How can you improve the way you feel about these issues?  How can you get stress tips?

Think about how you can make your job more enjoyable for yourself.  Why don’t you try and enhance the skills you have?  Another idea is to where possible  pace your work out and you will find that work stress and anxiety will reduce also. The job and stress don’t have to go hand in hand, you can decide that you wont let it take over your life.

What you shouldn’t do is let it affect your health.  Your health is one of the most important part of your life so keeping healthy will also help make you feel happier with yourself as you have some control over this aspect of your life.  Make sure you eat well and choose healthy food to feed your nerves.  Take a healthy lunch to work and include some fruit every day.  The fructose will give you an energy boost without the high calories.

Exercise is also important at this time when you may have work stress because it helps you release the stress in your body.  We say we don’t have time to exercise in our hectic lives but making some time even if its 15 minutes a day will see your stress levels improve.  Maybe it means you get up that little bit earlier in the morning or you go for a walk at lunchtime.  Try and make some time for exercise.

You can be in control of work stress and if you just follow a few of those ideas above it will improve.

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