7 tips to reduce stress at work

How do you recognize work stress?

If stress keeps increasing or if it overwhelms you, it is wise to take a step back. Signs of stress include:

• No energy
• Headaches
• Sleep problems
• No hunger or extreme hunger
• Problems with digestion
• Low self-confidence
• Low libido
• A poor immune system
• Anxiety symptoms
• Irritability
• Feelings and loneliness and gloominess
• Worrying

Don't worry: Fortunately, there are several ways you can reduce work stress and regain your balance:

1. Identify where the stress is coming from

It is important to know what factors cause stress before you can address them. So figure out what is causing your work stress. Maybe you don't get enough time to complete certain projects, you are expected to work overtime for an important deadline, or the long commute causes you to come home exhausted at the end of the day.

How do you find out what your causes of stress are? For example, you can keep a journal for a week in which you write down which situations make you feel negative.

The moment you experience stress or tension, it is helpful to write down the situation. This way you will gain insight. Later you can then look for ways to handle the situation better.

2. Take enough time for yourself

If you don't devote enough time to self-care, you increase your chances of experiencing burnout and other psychological symptoms such as feelings of anxiety and depression. So regularly engage in stress-relieving activities such as meditation and yoga or schedule time to do nothing at all.

You can also take breaks during your workday if you find you are low on energy. Listen to a podcast or do some breathing exercises for more energy. The Meditation Moments app has several short meditations you can do for a break between tasks.

3. Make a to-do list and stick to it

If we start the day with a to-do list of 67 tasks, chances are we get overwhelmed. Therefore, make a list of the 3 most important tasks of the day and focus on them. Once you have completed the day's tasks, you can move on to other tasks that are less urgent at that time.

By completing the most important tasks first each day, you will build more self-confidence. This is important if you want to get more work done.

4. Set healthy boundaries

It is important to set healthy boundaries if you don't want to become exhausted. Always being available makes sure you never take time to recharge. And while working more sounds productive, it's actually counterproductive. An excessive workload makes you more susceptible to stress. This can cause you to react more quickly to colleagues with frustration, for example.

Setting healthy boundaries can mean not checking your e-mail in the evening, not preparing meetings for Monday over the weekend or not taking on extra tasks if you don't have the time or energy.

5. Seek support from others

This can be from your family or friends, but also from a coach or a confidant at work. It is important to have people you can fall back on when stress begins to take over.

Your friends and family won't be able to take away all of your worries, but they can help you cope better with stressful situations at work.

6. Practice with different breathing exercises

Breathing exercises can help you stay calm in stressful situations. Fortunately, you only need a few minutes to calm yourself down.

The Meditation Moments app has different breathing exercises for any time of day. Do a breathing exercise when you feel tension rising or schedule a few minutes to do breathing exercises every day by default.

7. Don't strive for perfection

Often perfection comes from the fear of failure. We find it difficult to deal with criticism and so we keep trying, pushing and working harder. But this often does not improve the quality of our work.

What can also happen is that the pressure becomes too much, causing us to put things off and eventually quit altogether. It is important to remind yourself that doing your best is good enough and that making mistakes is allowed. Try not to take criticism personally and see it as a learning process.