It's not your imagination, and it's not a joke: Your job may in fact be making you sick, robbing you of sleep and running down your immune system, making you more vulnerable to illness! Things really are more stressful these days. In fact, workplace stress has more than tripled in the past several years according to researchers. Expectations are higher and the pace faster than when you began your job. Here's another tidbit from those researchers: The enemy may be within. What's making work stressful is not just about heightened expectations, but also about how you react to those changes and how well you take care of yourself. According to Robert Sapolsky professor of Biological Sciences and Neurological Sciences at Stanford University, we have the unique ability to remember and somehow imprint horrific experiences, often resulting in what we call long term chronic stress. As a result, we can experience accelerated heart rates, and high blood pressure, for periods of time much longer than our systems were originally designed to endure. In acutely stressful states our normal bodily functions shut down. We are not digesting, growing and healing like we should be doing on a regular basis. Somehow we've managed to introduce the equivalent of being chased by some huge ferocious beast, into our everyday lives! Therefore, as you can well imagine, long term chronic stress is pretty bad for our health. Sapolsky discovered through studying primates that the "number one" attributing factor to long term chronic stress was none other than the primate's own personality. We are the reason! A 20-year Duke University study looked at negative personality traits (hostility, anger, anxiety and depression). The researchers found that each negative personality trait, by itself, was significantly associated with increased risk for heart disease. However, when they analysed all of the traits in combination, they found statistical evidence that the clustering of traits was the best predictor of a person's risk for heart disease. Maybe it's about time we go positive: The remedy! Author Barbara Reinhold suggests three simple steps for de-stressing and detoxifying your work: 1. Practice paying attention to what goes well each day, rather than obsessing about the problems. As you fall asleep each evening, force yourself to remember and review something good about the day. You could even write them down, visualise them, or see your next step to build on. 2. Indulge in three pleasures every day -- three things that are fun and relaxing for you. Do them religiously! It is a great escape to fall into something you like in the middle of a stressful day or event. I watch food channels; I find it very relaxing for some reason. I'm not exactly a good cook, but concentrating on a recipe takes some stress away! Try Fatafeat! Besides, cooking on telly has gone a long way since I last watched. They go out to nature, open air, and they are funny, too. 3. Don't let anything get in the way of you getting enough sleep, exercising at least 30 minutes every day (just a walk can do it) and eating healthy, well-balanced meals. See, watching food channels could be helpful after all. Unless you win the lottery, which would bring its own issues, workplace stressors are probably here to stay. But there's no reason why you can't put them in their place by managing your own thoughts and lifestyle choices. This will not just impact you, but it will reflect on others as well as your own workplace. Final words: Mahatma Gandhi once said, "You must become the change you want to see in the world".
