Everyone has triggers that cause their stress levels to soar but, as QE Health psychologist Wayne Hewlett says, often our reaction is the real issue.
Is that colleague/client/supervisor really the problem or have they just pushed a button that is wired into a negative socket in your brain?
Do you proactively tackle problems, approaching somebody who can help, or do you withdraw, become the resident Oscar the Grouch and feed the brewing resentment and dissatisfaction?
When faced with those options, it seems an obvious choice. But in the workplace scrum, the most sensible course of action may not be so cut and dried.
Going to your boss and saying "this isn't working, we need to find a new approach" is not a big deal for some people. For others, it is an insurmountable hurdle. They worry about losing their job, being seen as a troublemaker or a whinger and about making themselves unpopular with other staff members.
This may be because they lack confidence or because the workplace culture and/or boss discourages questioning the status quo.
If you are able to go to the source of stress and bring it down to acceptable levels, that's great. If not, you need to learn how to identify situations and why they are stressful and then manage that stress - adapting your reactions to minimise the physical and emotional effects on you.
When I am busy, nothing winds me up more than five or six email volleys to set up one meeting. The interruptions cause my muscles to tense, my blood pressure to rise and my teeth to grind.
I used to respond with increasingly terse replies, but this just made the other person less co-operative and we would both arrive at the appointment ready to take our corners and wait for the bell.
Experience has taught me to cut the conversation off at the second email, ring the person up and sort it out there and then. The situation is resolved before either of us gets annoyed and I can then get on with what I am doing.
Now, if I could just find ways to deal calmly with IT hiccups, tardiness, inequity, incompetence, poor customer service, unnecessary rudeness ...
- Julie Taylor is the business editor at The Daily Post
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