Beating The Stress At Work
The work place has become a symbol of
stress for many. People despise heading for their work place, it is not
uncommon to hear people complain about how drab their lives are owing to their
mundane job. The reason they cite for continuing to work is because they need
to pay their bills and earn enough to live their lifestyle. In truth once we
reach adulthood we spend up to three fourth of our daily waking hours in the
office and hence if dislike is your predominant state of mind during this time
then it is natural to cultivate an
abhorrence to your life itself resulting in acute stress.
What
Is Stress?
Stress is an emotion which is felt in the
body as a reaction to the state of mind where the future is held as uncertain,
hopeless, dreary, scary or terrifying.
So projecting into the future is the main cause of stress. Can past cause
stress? Not possible and you can test it for yourself, whenever you think about
an unpleasant experience in the past you might feel dejected, grief stricken or
angry but you will not feel stressed. Stress as I said is an emotion and has a
distinct feel to it. Even when you perceive the future to be pleasant or when
you are in the state of looking forward to a future situation even then you
might feel stress in the present moment because you feel stuck in it
desperately wanting to get to the future. It is a common state in majority of
the people; very few actually live in the present without using their mind to
project each of their waking moment into a future.
Stress
Busters A Temporary Panacea
Each of us wields a stress busting
technique which is our personal favorite. Some of the common stress busting
behaviors which we get to see during office hours are gossiping, idle talk,
smoking or drinking coffee, browsing,
sitting on the pot (believe me it's a favorite for many) or going for walk around the campus. I am sure
you might be indulging in one of these activities on day to day basis to beat
your office stress.
Then there are stress busters which we
indulge in while we are out of the office, the most common would be spending
the evening at the bar, watching TV, smoking a cigar or cigarette, eating your
favorite food, reading a book, browsing the internet, going for a long walk or
a drive, meditation or yoga & several other things. Usually stress is
accompanied by the feeling of "things are not okay right now" and hence the
need to escape the present.
Pain killers or muscle relaxants often
provide relief for a head ache or body ache which develops as a result of the
continuous stress. Alcoholism is quite common today more because alcohol being
a depressant helps relax the nerves and slow down the thinking mind which
provides a sense of relief. The problem being that alcohol addiction then
becomes a source of problem in itself, instead of solving problem you end up
creating a new problem.
Nipping
The Cause Of Stress
Stress busters remove the symptoms of stress but
they cannot resolve the cause of stress and hence it's just a temporary cure.
To nip the cause of stress it's important to understand that it arise out of a
dysfunction within us. Few people would want to take the responsibility of
understanding completely that they are cause of their stress, not the people
around them or circumstances. All circumstances change and exist only for a
small phase of time, stress is a result of viewing the circumstance in which
you exist as deplorable to put it mildly. The mind in its continuous commentary
keeps telling you that the present is not okay and you need to get somewhere in
the future to be happy. The present might indeed by hopelessly bad in fact all
life situations come with their share of problems but there is a distinction
between life situation and your present moment. Life situation is what you
create through your mind and it's not real just a projection which is
imaginary. Your present moment is all that's real and when you live completely
in the present you will not feel stress at all.
