Stress Management- 36 Simple Ways to Reduce Stress

I had read an interesting article recently on reducing stress and thought it appropriate to share it with all of you.

Below are 36 simple ways to reduce stress.

1) Pray/meditate.

2) Go to bed on time.

3) Get up on time so that you can start the day unrushed.

4) Say 'NO' to projects that won't fit into your time schedule, or that will compromise your mental health.

5) Delegate tasks to people who are capable.

6) Simplify and unclutter your life.

7) Less is more. (My comments on this- although one is often not enough, however two are often too many.)

8) Allow extra time to do things and to get to places.

9) Pace yourself.  Spread out big challenges and difficult projects over time. (My view is, not over time but on time and it requires careful planning); don't lump the hard things all together. (Personally speaking, to avoid stress, deal with difficult tasks one by one and according to priorities rather than delaying them.  Delaying always increases anxiety and stress.)

10) Take ONE day at a time.

11) Separate worries from concerns.  Deal with situations accordingly.  If you can't do anything about the situation, then forget it.

12) Live within your budget; don't use credit cards for ordinary purchases.

13) Have backups; such as an extra car key in your wallet, an extra house key buried in the garden etc.

14) K.M.S (Keep Mouth Shut) (I think that this single piece of advice can prevent an enormous amount of trouble.)

15) Do something for the kid in you everyday.

16) Carry a Holy book/novel or something interesting to you while waiting in line.

17) Get enough rest.

18) Eat right.

19) Get organized so that everything has its place.

20) Listen to music whenever you get the time. Music is indeed food for the soul.

21) Write down thoughts and inspirations. (This is what I believe, and that is write about something that you are good at.  Writing improves and clears your thought processes in a synchronized manner.)

22) Find time to be alone everyday.

23) Don't take problems to bed.

24) Make friends with people who are the same mental level as yours.

25) Take time to visit nature.

26) Remember that the shortest bridge between despair and hope is often good "THANK YOU GOD".

27) Laugh.

28) Laugh some more. 

29) Take your work seriously but not yourself at all.

30) Develop a forgiving attitude. (Most people are doing the best that they can)

31) Be kind to unkind people. (Hmmm, well I for one think that it is difficult to do but not impossible.)

32) Sit on your ego.

33) Talk less, listen more.

34) Slow down sometimes.

35) Remind yourself that you are not the General Manager of the Universe.  (Hey! You can't do everything, so just relax.)

36) Every night before going to bed, think of one of your day's achievements or things that make you happy and sleep happy.

An angel said, "Never borrow from the future.  If you worry about what may happen tomorrow and it does not happen, you have worried in vain. Even if it does happen, you have to worry twice".

The best advice I can give you about reducing stress is just to K.I.S.S (Keep It Straight and Simple).  Don't do things in your life to complicate matters. It will only give you more stress. Above all, try not to worry and be happy!!

Are 8 Hours In The Office Not Enough?

Spending 40 hours a week on a job may seem like enough, but for some firms, it's NEVER enough!  It is a catastrophe that working late in the office has become a cliche nowadays.  In a highly competitive world which demands hard work in the right direction, spending long hours at the office has become a norm.  More and more people are becoming workaholics and working has become such a habit to them that they spend more and more time at the office.

It is sad that working long hours has become a sign of hard work, loyalty and sincerity in our culture.  But where is all this going to end?  I mean do we stereotype the one who works late everyday as the most efficient and productive employee?  Do we say that he/she is the one who is committed to the work because of the long working hours that are put in?  I beg to differ on this.

We as employees are given 8 hours a day at work.  If we are efficient in managing our time, we can definitely get our work done in 8 hours and not more.  Time management is a skill and I urge every employee to learn it well and practice it.

To organize your work, you should be able to differentiate between what work  is to be given priority and what is urgent work. Identify  time wasters like chit-chatting with your co-workers, unwarranted meetings, lack of delegation, desk clutter just to name a few.  Limit distractions and interruptions and you will find that you have more time to complete your work in the given 8 hours.  Deadlines don't have to be DEAD LINES if you systematically do your work every day and perhaps pass your work up even before the deadline. The deal here is that you must NEVER procrastinate when it comes to your work.  If you do, then deadlines become stress lines on your face and you will find that you are burning the midnight oil at the office.

Some of us decide to stay back at the office just so we can impress the boss for perhaps a promotion?  Be true to yourself.  Is all this sucking up really going to do you any good?  Your promotion is assessed by how well you perform in the company.  It's fine if you are bringing in the business for your company by working late sometimes but doing it all the time just so your boss will notice you may just back fire.  Your boss is not stupid.

So, now let's look at the disadvantages of working late in the office.

1) Your health will ultimately be affected-

When you work late hours, you end up eating late dinners and this will definitely affect your health. Not to mention that you don't have the time to exercise and this leads to obesity, diabetes and heart disorders.  Working late causes unwanted stress in your body and this may lead to insomnia, headaches and sometimes  loss of appetite.  Sitting too long in your work station can give you back aches and joint pains too and don't forget, posture problems.  Many also experience the 'burn out' syndrome (extreme fatigue) and this will give rise to ulcers and anxiety disorders.

Employees are the backbone of any organization.  If the employee is unhealthy, this will definitely affect the concerned company and the organization.  Late working hours may provide extra business to the company but at what expense I ask you?  You'll find a more stressed and tired employee who will not be able to give his/her best.  What happens next?  He/she may make costly errors if there's a report to be done or some accounts to review.

This will bring great damage to the company's profits and thus his/her efficiency is greatly reduced and productivity levels soon drop.  This may lead to staff resignation, retention and recruitment problems.  In short, employees must be healthy to give positive outputs for the company.  This will not happen if the employee works late at the office every day.

2) Hardly any time to spend with your family and for yourself-

This is the main disadvantage that I want to amplify in this post.  It is generally said that you spend 8 hours to sleep and 8 hours to work and 8 hours to rest in a 24 hour cycle.  But I ask you now, is this time cycle evenly divided?  Think about it. Are you getting 8 hours of sleep a day?  Are you spending 8 hours with your family and yourself and are you spending only 8 hours at work?  Most of you will surely say 'NO' to all these questions wouldn't you?

I strongly believe in a balanced life.  As much as I love my work and it is important to me, my family is important to me too.  Let's face it!  Our employers know that we as employees have a life outside the office.  We are not robots that just clock in and clock out every day with a smile on our face.  We are human-beings. We have our families and friends.  We have our commitments. If we work late in the office every day, we will not have time for our families and friends, let alone for ourselves.

I am not saying that you stop working and start enjoying your life.  No I am not. I do understand that we are all dependent on a consistent income every month to run our households and our lives. Our jobs pay the bills.  But having said that, it doesn't mean that you have to camp out in your office!  For most of us executives and higher level employees, it doesn't matter if we work 8 hours or 16 hours a day because we are still paid for the 8 hours and nothing more. So why not fully use the 8 hours at work and finish what we do?

What happens when we are always working late? We don't get to spend time with our families. We only come home and go to sleep as it is very late and we wake up early next morning to go to work.  You may ask, what about the weekends?  Well if you are free during the weekends, you tend to sleep all day through just to catch up on your sleep because you are very tired from lack of sleep throughout the week days.

Many problems arise as a direct result of working late in the office all the time.  Firstly, your relationship with your spouse will deteriorate because you don't spend much time communicating with each other and this may lead to a break-up in your marriage, in other words, a divorce.  How about your relationship with your children as well?  You will miss their precious years of growing up.  I also refer to single parents who will miss the opportunity to bond with their children as they are mostly at work.  You'll find that your kids are closer to their grandparents and their babysitters.  What about your parents?  What about your friends?  Ask yourself this question.  As a result of you spending so much time at the office, what have you missed out in your family?  How well do you know your family members and what is going on in their lives?  Obviously, you'll be left out BUT it does not have to be that way if you balance your working life with your family life.  It is not rocket science but realizing your priorities in your life.  Remember this quote, "If you don't set your priorities, somebody else will!"

As long as a person is single, one can cope with long hours at work.  But once you are married with children, these long hours don't make any sense.  Never forget the joys of family life.  It is a gift and not everybody is bestowed with it.  So, what I'm trying to say here is spend time with your families for they are what matters most in your lives.  Spend time with your parents, your spouse, your children and your friends.  Find a hobby that you like and cultivate what interests you.  When you are relaxed with your family and friends, you tend to de-stress and this is very good for your health. Try to go for a walk for at least 30 minutes a day and this will energize and relax you.  Laugh as much as you can...it is the natural healer of your body.  Never apologize to your boss or feel guilty for having spent some quality time with your family because it is YOUR RIGHT to do so when you have already spent enough time in your office for the day.  Remember if you are HAPPY at HOME, you are HAPPY at WORK.  That's the golden rule to take note of.

3) Your personal safety maybe at risk-

This may not seem something important to most of you but let me point out this disadvantage.  When you work late in the office, it means you will be going home late.  As it is you are already tired and sleepy and if you drive back home, there is a high chance that in your grogginess, you may make a wrong judgment in your driving and meet with an accident.  Remember, it can be FATAL.  What about lady employees?  Not all of them are fortunate enough to have someone drive them back home or they drive home on their own.  Some of them take the public transport back home.  If it's very late, there is always trouble lurking around somewhere for the women employees. For instance: mugging, purse snatching or even sexual assaults.  Somehow, the predators like to prey on women and so women are at a higher risk when it comes to their personal safety when working late.  Do you want to be a victim?  Try your hardest to go home on time and if you do have to stay back sometimes, don't stay longer than 2 hours.  Always be safe and not sorry.

4) You become anti-social-

One of the disadvantages of working late in the office every day is you sooner or later become anti-social.  What does this mean?  It means you are not in touch with anybody around you.  You start disliking being around people for no reason.  You have no social life, you don't attend functions and you miss out on all the good things in life.  Your whole life revolves around your work.  All you do is wake up and go to work on time and stay back till late hours in the office and then go home and sleep and this vicious cycle repeats itself day in and day out until your quality of life is totally diminished.  The repercussions are great.  Your mental health will deteriorate a great deal and you may have trouble dealing with your inner feelings of wanting to be free and be like everybody else.  You may take up a bad habit like drinking profusely or smoking heavily.  After all, you are only human.  you are not a machine and so it is only natural that you act out in other ways.

At the end of the day, who will suffer most?  It is you.  How can you do your best at work when you are drunk?   Your company can just fire you and take someone else if you don't do your best and in the end, your long hours of work and sacrificing your social life will all seem futile...just dust in the wind.  So my advice is, work smart and try to finish your work on time and go and get yourself a life!!

5) Inefficiency if employees slacken their pace of work in order to qualify for over time-

Although this doesn't apply to employees of higher levels, it does apply to your subordinates. Your staffs are paid for their extra time at work and so many of them in order to want to work longer hours in the office, delay their work so that they can claim over time from their company.  What happens here is that not only is the company paying over time salary for jobs that could have been completed during normal office hours but indirectly, the company doesn't realize that its productivity level is declining and the company is losing money.

Everyone wants to make that extra cash for something and so you as their employer may find it difficult to get your projects done on time and to answer to your boss.  It may leave you wondering whether your staffs are not able to  handle their jobs or have become inefficient in their work that they must stay back long hours to complete it.  It will also not look good on you as their manager as your boss may find you not capable enough to motivate your staffs to want to work efficiently and on time.

The above disadvantages of working late in the office I hope will help you see that there is more to life than just your career.  I never said that your job is not important but if you can manage your time well, 8 hours of office work is sufficient for you as an employee and you can go home on time and be able to devote yourself to all the things that you would want to do.

I can also understand that there may be some times when it is imperative for you to stay back in the office longer.  Try to limit this to perhaps twice a week.  Always remember that if you have clients to meet, you can always schedule an appointment with them later unless it is absolutely urgent but, this rarely happens unless it's a very important and profitable deal that you have to clinch.  Most of the times, your clients are more than willing to make an appointment with you for a meeting.

I would like to end this post with something for you to think about. This is a 30 second speech by Bryan Dyson- Former CEO of Coca Cola.

"Imagine life as a game in which you are  juggling some five balls in the air.  They are Work, Family, Health, Friends and Spirit and you are keeping all of these in the air.  You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball.  If you drop it, it will bounce back.  But the other four Balls- Family, Health, Friends and Spirit- are made of glass.  If you drop one of these; they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered.  They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for it."

"Work efficiently during office hours and leave on time.  Give the required time to your family, friends and have proper rest.  Value has a value only if its value is valued."

Our work no doubt gives you the money to live a better life.  But if the same work is making your life worse, then what is the need for all this hard work of staying up late in the office?  You might as well go home after 8 hours and be happy!

I am eager to read your comments on this post.  Please feel free to tell me what your views are.

The Power Of Positive Thinking

While I was coming to the office this morning, I saw a blind boy begging at the roadside.  That reminded me of a story once told by my lecturer when I was pursuing my MBA.  I wish to share this story with you in the hope that maybe it will bring some good changes in someone's life by simply thinking positively.  So here is the story.

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet.  He held up a sign which said: "I am blind, please help."  There were only a few coins in the hat.

A man was walking by.  He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat.  He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words.  He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.

Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon, the man who changed the sign came to see how things were.  The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, "Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?"

The man said, "I only wrote the truth.  I said what you said but in a different way."  What he had written was: "Today is a beautiful day and I cannot see it."  Do you think the first sign and second sign were saying the same thing?

Of course both signs told people that the boy was blind.  But the first sign simply said the boy was blind.  The second sign told people they were so lucky that they were not blind.  Should we be surprised that the second sign was more effective?

Always try to see something good out of something bad.  If you focus on the good side, chances are that the bad side will fade away and you will discover that it is not so bad after all.  It is all about the power of positive thinking.  Try it and you will see the difference.

The Wisdom of Struggle

I received an e-mail from my colleague this morning and it made my day.  Below is the article I received and I hope that you will also find this useful and thought provoking.

One day, a small opening appeared on a cocoon.  A man sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through the little hole.  Then it seemed to stop making any progress.  It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could, and it could go no further.

So, the man decided to help the butterfly.  He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily.  But it had a swollen body and small shriveled wings.

The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time.  Neither happened!  In fact the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings.

It was NEVER able to fly.  What the man, in his kindness and haste, did not understand, was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening was God's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it's achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

Sometimes, STRUGGLES are exactly what we NEED in our lives.

If God allowed us to go through our lives without any obstacles, it would CRIPPLE us.  We would not be as strong as what we could have been.

It's a simple story about how nature works but its meaning is very deep.  Think about it.  I would appreciate your comments about this post very much.

6 Negative Managerial Behaviors

As an employee working in a multinational organization in a middle management cadre, I have encountered certain management attitudes and behaviors that I feel act as an obstacle to them being able to discharge their management responsibilities effectively. In fact, these behaviors tend to negatively influence the working environment which in turn serves to deteriorate the circumstances further, resulting in unhappy employees, poor morale, low productivity, and a stressful environment for all concerned.


Below are some of the harmful behaviors that I have observed among managers that can have a negative effect on  the working environment.

 
1) Failure to 'Lead By Example'

What is critical to effective leadership is leading by example or "walking your talk". You will never earn the respect of others if the examples you set are not congruent with the values that you want your staff to have, for example: honesty, discipline and timeliness. The best managers practice what they preach. Many leaders and managers say they want change and continuous improvement but do nothing for the change.  Instead, they expect their subordinates to bring changes by improving their individual competencies themselves.  For employees, there is nothing more powerful than observing their superiors do the actions or practice behaviors that they are requesting from their staff. As Mahatma Gandhi said,"Become the change you wish to see in the world, and it will happen."

2) Communicating Poorly

Good communication means telling staffs your expectations about them, your work standards and your problems. Failing to keep your staffs informed or having the attitude that your staffs are supposed to know what to do is a clear step towards poor performance at the workplace. 'Expecting them to know' is a very unsafe notion to have as people have different opinions, views and values about work. I have on many occasions noticed managers give instructions like, "Do the report" and "You are the senior person now. You should know how to do it. Do I have to tell you?" and nothing else. Questions from the recipient are then disregarded with the statement , "Surely you know how to do a report." When the report is then submitted a few days later, the manager throws a tantrum and makes statements like, "Why have you put only the summary of expenses and revenues? Where are the details? Why have you not put in charts and tables, why have you not quoted examples?" My contention is shouldn't all these have been communicated before the report was made? It would have saved time, effort and most importantly, prevented the report maker from being demotivated.

A significant factor in communications is 'good listening', a skill I feel many managers lack. Managers seem to prefer the 'you listen to me as I am the boss' syndrome. As much as you want your staffs to know how you feel, they would also want you to know how they feel. Good listening will enable managers to really be aware of the problems of subordinates and more importantly, enable them to get feedback on work activities. This will then enable managers to take action to improve operations, procedures, policies and customer care.

3) Failure to Train and Develop Staffs

Well-trained employees at all levels of your organization are integral to achieving your business objectives and raising your business performance. Your staffs need up-to-date skills and best practice methods to do their jobs efficiently and effectively. This skill and knowledge building process is an important and valuable ongoing investment in your business.

Many managers in most of the organizations I have seen make the assumption that their staffs will eventually 'catch on' or will automatically get to know their job through a process of time. Yes, this is possible, but learning through experience is a very slow way of learning. Training helps to accelerate this learning process. I believe managers must spend at least 25% of their time coaching and training their staff. Even a person like Meg Whitman, the CEO of E-Bay admits, "My weakness is that I haven't done enough day to day coaching and mentoring." I have heard many managers telling, "It's no use spending money training staffs because as soon as they get the skills , they will want to leave to join another company."  My answer in the form of a question is usually, "What if you don't train them and they do not leave to join another company?" There is always a risk that staff after being trained may take these skills elsewhere, but the greater risk I believe is for managers not to train them and thus have untrained incompetent subordinates.
 
4) The Fear Factor

This seems to be the favorite  method used by managers. Threatening seems easy, as the results are instantaneous. When a manager barks, "Practice your management philosophy somewhere else and obey my orders. I will make sure that  it will affect your evaluation." Chances are that the manager will kill the ideas that could benefit the organization and thus your subordinates will  never ever think for the organization's benefit.  The preference for this method is because the response was in line with the command and it was 'easy'. But fear only works short term. Fear will cause people to retaliate negatively in the form of poor quality and quantity of work, absenteeism and apathy towards their work and in extreme examples, even sabotage. All of these are costs to the organization, but are usually ignored as they are difficult to quantify.

Another problem with this attitude is that the working environment becomes tensed and stressful; these are clearly unsuitable conditions for good quality and quantity of work. The employees in a sense become 'robots' who are happy to do the bare minimal at the workplace. On the other hand, motivating people with strong leadership skills , will bring out the best in them. Recognize, reward, encourage and appreciate them and this will increase worker output to a substantial extent. Employees thrive on recognition and appreciation and want to be treated fairly. This is something that seems to be lacking in many organizations.

5) Showing Favoritism

Ironically, many managers prefer to have favorites although they like motivating by fear. This is mostly because they feel that certain employees have more knowledge then them and can expose and magnify the manager's lack of knowledge. When it comes to the crunch, they prefer to 'tolerate' rather than terminate even if the favorites under perform and promote them rather than employees who have more experience with the same level of qualification who rightfully deserve so. It is a tragedy that it is this 'face of management' that gets abused again and again by a minority of preferred employees. If asked, I am sure most of us can name at least five preferred people in our organizations who are contributing less than others at the same level; in other words,  they are liabilities to the organization. Yet, we are perplexed when the management takes no decisive action against these people. Why is this so? Why do organizations pay good salaries and yet do not demand good services in return? Again, I attribute this to our culture where we have our own likes and dislikes that come to play at the time of evaluating subordinates and giving promotions. 

I know that it's a human factor to like and dislike people but, in a professional environment, managers must learn to put aside their feelings and evaluate every person under them on the basis of performance. Otherwise, the organization will lose out as it takes only one of these types of employees to have a negative and demoralizing effect on the rest.

6) Focusing on Quantity rather than Quality

Many a times, managers are only focused on the ends and not the means. They tend to manage 'quantitatively'. The management is only geared towards achieving certain numbers and nothing else. When this happens, these managers become blinded by these numbers. My argument here is that these numbers only represent successful and well thought out procedures and policies of an organization. 

Compromising on quality and not implementing quality policies will damage the organization's effectiveness and its reputation in the relative markets.

  There are even some organizations that hire managers on a one or two year contract basis, who are then informed that the renewal of the contract is dependent on their performance: in short, profits. Hence, these managers tend to focus on short term targets and most importantly play the numbers game. These are usually achieved in the long term detriment of the company concerned. In his book, 'Good To Great', Michael Collins states that the companies which are great never become successful overnight. It was as a result of prolonged stewardship of the company of an individual who displayed very good leadership skills and importantly, focused on long term goals. 

I find that most managers are ironically aware of the above and yet when asked, "Why don't you try to reduce these negative behaviors?", the answers vary from "It's too difficult" to "I don't even have time for my work, so how do you expect me to concentrate on these other factors?" My answer has always been that, "Being a good manager is never easy." 

                                                                 
So have you identified your negative managerial behaviors? Those who are able to reduce or even totally eliminate most of these behaviors will surely reap the rewards in the long term, specifically in terms of managerial excellence, and with that will come more satisfaction, motivation and fulfillment in your managerial career.