Don´t Let The Financial Crisis Create A Corporate Health Crisis In Your Office
Dr. Paul Lanthois
October 11, 2008
For Laura Hucker, it has become increasingly difficult to maintain her focus on her job over the last couple of months. It´s no longer a case of worrying about meeting her project deadlines. Instead the big question has become, "Will I still have a job by the end of the month?"
"The struggling economy has created a lot more stress in the workplace as well as at home," said Laura, a 29-year-old administrative assistant at a transport company. "If something happens, I don´t know how I would pay my rent?"
It´s not just the younger employees that are feeling the financial stress of this stuttering economy. It´s people all around us – from managers close to retirement age seeing their nest egg appearing vulnerable to working parents trying to pay off mortgages, afford childcare and rising fuel costs.
As the financial markets are plunging, Americans' stress level is on the rise. Eighty percent of Americans said in a September survey that the economy is a significant source of stress, up from 66% in April.
The top stressors for Americans: money (81%), the economy (80%), work (67%), and health problems affecting the family (67%), according to surveys by the American Psychological Association (APA).
The stress is taking its toll on people's health and overall well-being. In 2008, more people reported stress-related physical and emotional symptoms than they did in 2007, and nearly half of adults said their stress has increased in the past year. More people reported stress-related fatigue(53% vs. 51% in 2007), feelings of irritability or anger (60% vs. 50% in 2007), and lying awake at night (52% vs. 48% in 2007).
The major problem is that that there is a hallucination that we are managing our stress well. This is despite the fact that forty-eight percent of people surveyed use unhealthy coping strategies like overeating or choosing unhealthy foods as their main way to deal with stress. If we were managing stress better why do we have more stress-related physical and emotional syptoms than ever before? The ways we handle try to relieve stress are clearly ineffective.
Illness, fatigue and loss of productivity aren´t things that happen by chance. They require a certain recipe to flourish and one of the major ingredients is stress. So in these times of heightened stress levels it is even more important to support your body in coping with this extra stress by having an even healthier lifestyle.
You may be wondering how can we afford a healthy lifestyle in challenging financial times?
Step 1 For Avoiding A Corporate Health Crisis In Your Office
Implement A Corporate Health Program
Whether you run a small business from home or a multi national company, it is easy and inexpensive to implement your own corporate health program. You can make a substantial difference to your own health and the health of everyone else in the company by following The Work Life Balance Foundation´s 7-Step Corporate Health Energy And Wellness Program. It would take less than a day to implement most of these changes.
Step 2 For Avoiding A Corporate Health Crisis In Your Office
Support Your Employees Health And Emphasize The Importance To Be Refreshed
These challenging times for all businesses require everyone to roll up their sleeves and work harder than ever. The result can often be longer hours at work. And with people being so worried about losing their jobs there would also be an increased reluctance to take the necessary time off in times of illness. This will only further compound any stress, sickness and productivity challenges.
It is important that people in areas of management be aware of how their fellow workers may be coping with the financial stress and communicate the increasing importance of ensuring that they look after themselves physically and emotionally. This heightened increase in awareness and support for your workers health and well-being during this demanding period will go along way towards fostering greater loyalty and teamwork from employees.
Step 3 For Avoiding A Corporate Health Crisis In Your Office
Share Healthy Stress Management Tips Throughout Your Organization
I am sick and tired of all those positive thinking gurus out there saying, "just be more positive,"or "look on the bright side".The problem is that most of us are so conditioned to being stressed that have forgotten how to be more positive and more relaxed.And no one seems to tell us how do we get more relaxed and more positive!
At www.WorklifeBalance Foundation.com you can access a lot of practical'how-to' information on how you can retrain how you use your brain diferently to become more relaxed,more positive and have more control of your emotions.
Having been on the verge of a nervous breakdown about 10 years ago to now being described by one of my patients as "pathologically happy" I learnt many ways of using my mind differently. These new mind habits transformed the amount of stress I perceived and I did not change the situation or circumstances I was in.
The first thing I realised was that although I cannot control what happens around me, I am free to choose how I want to interpret things. This caused me to stop blaming other people and the circumstances around me. It was my interpretation of other people and other circumstances that was the cause of my stress. And because I was the cause, I also knew that I was the SOLUTION.
Many of you have heard other experts say "Just start being more positive. Start taking responsibility for your thoughts and emotions." It sounds simple enough but when you have got so used to being stressed it is really hard to know how to be less stressed. And I remember that it can be embarrassing too. So follow these three steps to give you greater control of how you do emotions.
All of you familiar with computers will have heard of PDF format. The key for learning to managing your emotional stress can be remembered by the same name: PDF
Posture
Description
Focus
Posture
Lets look at your posture first. Imagine you were an actor playing the part of someone stressed how would his or her posture be? It would most likely be bent over with the shoulders raised and tight facial muscles.
Now repeat the same exercise but this time you are playing the part of someone relaxed? How is their posture? It is more upright.
How can this help you? When you notice that you are tense or stressed out change your posture to a more upright and open stance. Try it. It can make a remarkable difference.
Description
Next, you need to pay attention to how you describe things. We all have a tendency to use figures of speech and metaphors that tend to exaggerate the emotional intensity for the worse. For example, some phrases that spring to mind are:
"This job is driving me crazy"
"No one ever listens to me"
"My back is killing me"
With these examples lets look at the reality:
You may be experiencing some things you don´t like at your work but you have not been certified insane.
It is likely that many people listen to you (eg your children and family) but certain people may not in some instances (Do any people respond when you say "Hi". If so they must have heard you.)
With regards to your back pain, you are alive, so it can´t be killing you.
So become conscious of how you describe things and aim to be more accurate.
Focus
Have you ever bought a new car and then all of a sudden you see them everywhere? There hasn´t been a magical release of thousands more cars just like yours. You are now more focussed on it.
You can use this to your advantage by consciously begin to focus on things that make you feel a bit better. For instance try to focus on people´s smiles. Once you do this you´ll start to notice so many people smiling that you will think that there is some magic at work. It´s not hocus-pocus; it´s just the power of focus.
So rather than become another work stress statistic, at the first signs of feeling stressed at work think PDF.
See numerous other natural stress relief and stress management tips at www.WorkLifeBalanceFoundation.com
"The struggling economy has created a lot more stress in the workplace as well as at home," said Laura, a 29-year-old administrative assistant at a transport company. "If something happens, I don´t know how I would pay my rent?"
It´s not just the younger employees that are feeling the financial stress of this stuttering economy. It´s people all around us – from managers close to retirement age seeing their nest egg appearing vulnerable to working parents trying to pay off mortgages, afford childcare and rising fuel costs.
As the financial markets are plunging, Americans' stress level is on the rise. Eighty percent of Americans said in a September survey that the economy is a significant source of stress, up from 66% in April.
The top stressors for Americans: money (81%), the economy (80%), work (67%), and health problems affecting the family (67%), according to surveys by the American Psychological Association (APA).
The stress is taking its toll on people's health and overall well-being. In 2008, more people reported stress-related physical and emotional symptoms than they did in 2007, and nearly half of adults said their stress has increased in the past year. More people reported stress-related fatigue(53% vs. 51% in 2007), feelings of irritability or anger (60% vs. 50% in 2007), and lying awake at night (52% vs. 48% in 2007).
The major problem is that that there is a hallucination that we are managing our stress well. This is despite the fact that forty-eight percent of people surveyed use unhealthy coping strategies like overeating or choosing unhealthy foods as their main way to deal with stress. If we were managing stress better why do we have more stress-related physical and emotional syptoms than ever before? The ways we handle try to relieve stress are clearly ineffective.
Illness, fatigue and loss of productivity aren´t things that happen by chance. They require a certain recipe to flourish and one of the major ingredients is stress. So in these times of heightened stress levels it is even more important to support your body in coping with this extra stress by having an even healthier lifestyle.
You may be wondering how can we afford a healthy lifestyle in challenging financial times?
Step 1 For Avoiding A Corporate Health Crisis In Your Office
Implement A Corporate Health Program
Whether you run a small business from home or a multi national company, it is easy and inexpensive to implement your own corporate health program. You can make a substantial difference to your own health and the health of everyone else in the company by following The Work Life Balance Foundation´s 7-Step Corporate Health Energy And Wellness Program. It would take less than a day to implement most of these changes.
Step 2 For Avoiding A Corporate Health Crisis In Your Office
Support Your Employees Health And Emphasize The Importance To Be Refreshed
These challenging times for all businesses require everyone to roll up their sleeves and work harder than ever. The result can often be longer hours at work. And with people being so worried about losing their jobs there would also be an increased reluctance to take the necessary time off in times of illness. This will only further compound any stress, sickness and productivity challenges.
It is important that people in areas of management be aware of how their fellow workers may be coping with the financial stress and communicate the increasing importance of ensuring that they look after themselves physically and emotionally. This heightened increase in awareness and support for your workers health and well-being during this demanding period will go along way towards fostering greater loyalty and teamwork from employees.
Step 3 For Avoiding A Corporate Health Crisis In Your Office
Share Healthy Stress Management Tips Throughout Your Organization
I am sick and tired of all those positive thinking gurus out there saying, "just be more positive,"or "look on the bright side".The problem is that most of us are so conditioned to being stressed that have forgotten how to be more positive and more relaxed.And no one seems to tell us how do we get more relaxed and more positive!
At www.WorklifeBalance Foundation.com you can access a lot of practical'how-to' information on how you can retrain how you use your brain diferently to become more relaxed,more positive and have more control of your emotions.
Having been on the verge of a nervous breakdown about 10 years ago to now being described by one of my patients as "pathologically happy" I learnt many ways of using my mind differently. These new mind habits transformed the amount of stress I perceived and I did not change the situation or circumstances I was in.
The first thing I realised was that although I cannot control what happens around me, I am free to choose how I want to interpret things. This caused me to stop blaming other people and the circumstances around me. It was my interpretation of other people and other circumstances that was the cause of my stress. And because I was the cause, I also knew that I was the SOLUTION.
Many of you have heard other experts say "Just start being more positive. Start taking responsibility for your thoughts and emotions." It sounds simple enough but when you have got so used to being stressed it is really hard to know how to be less stressed. And I remember that it can be embarrassing too. So follow these three steps to give you greater control of how you do emotions.
All of you familiar with computers will have heard of PDF format. The key for learning to managing your emotional stress can be remembered by the same name: PDF
Posture
Description
Focus
Posture
Lets look at your posture first. Imagine you were an actor playing the part of someone stressed how would his or her posture be? It would most likely be bent over with the shoulders raised and tight facial muscles.
Now repeat the same exercise but this time you are playing the part of someone relaxed? How is their posture? It is more upright.
How can this help you? When you notice that you are tense or stressed out change your posture to a more upright and open stance. Try it. It can make a remarkable difference.
Description
Next, you need to pay attention to how you describe things. We all have a tendency to use figures of speech and metaphors that tend to exaggerate the emotional intensity for the worse. For example, some phrases that spring to mind are:
"This job is driving me crazy"
"No one ever listens to me"
"My back is killing me"
With these examples lets look at the reality:
You may be experiencing some things you don´t like at your work but you have not been certified insane.
It is likely that many people listen to you (eg your children and family) but certain people may not in some instances (Do any people respond when you say "Hi". If so they must have heard you.)
With regards to your back pain, you are alive, so it can´t be killing you.
So become conscious of how you describe things and aim to be more accurate.
Focus
Have you ever bought a new car and then all of a sudden you see them everywhere? There hasn´t been a magical release of thousands more cars just like yours. You are now more focussed on it.
You can use this to your advantage by consciously begin to focus on things that make you feel a bit better. For instance try to focus on people´s smiles. Once you do this you´ll start to notice so many people smiling that you will think that there is some magic at work. It´s not hocus-pocus; it´s just the power of focus.
So rather than become another work stress statistic, at the first signs of feeling stressed at work think PDF.
See numerous other natural stress relief and stress management tips at www.WorkLifeBalanceFoundation.com
Print
Email
