Professional Development

You know what it feels like when you do not or cannot manage stress properly. And it is blatantly obvious when others let stress influence them. Not being able to deal with conflict constructively, not listening properly, battling to solve problems, struggling to stay positive – and that is just at home. At work, illness and time off drop your productivity even lower than the reduced performance stress was causing you to achieve. In this article we'll discuss some proactive ways to deal with stress. It is far better to find proactive ways to deal with stress by paying attention to two factors that can make a big difference: how the environment you are in causes stress, and how you manage that stress. Everyone’s environment creates stress points for them; tackling them means you look at coping mechanisms and management techniques aimed at reducing these stress points. The other side of the same coin is to look at strategies that will help put you in a stronger, more agile frame of mind. This is a more comfortable place to be where our heart rates and blood pressure are not elevated and where we feel confident. How to understand stress. Now, before we dive in deeper it is important to define stress: Stress is our experience of being confronted with a stressful situation – also known as stressors. This will look like an unpredictable piece of bad news, a work deadline, or an upcoming bill payment. These stressors are factors that cause us to experience stress. The expectation your spouse has of you to remember your wedding anniversary and celebrate it in a way that shows you considered them when you planned it, maybe a stressor that is interpreted as stress. Stress is experienced when we see upcoming threats or [...]