7 Mindful Ways To Handle Workplace Anxiety
Think of the word “mindful", what imagery crops up?
A peaceful happy rotund Buddha, blissfully oblivious to his surrounding maybe?
In reality what happens?
You are running against a deadline, your boss has thrown a new project your way, your inbox is overflowing with unanswered emails, and there are a billion things that need to be done. You, on the other hand, feel overwhelmed, and all you want to do is run and hide.
The spiral of anxiety that presents itself on a daily basis can sweep us away and the stress that accompanies it may seem insurmountable.
At times like this, we have to remind ourselves to pause and administer a dose of self-care. When you feel scattered and agitated you are definitely not feeling good about yourself, let alone get any work done.
Pause, take a break from the voices in your head, his, hers, yours, mine and find your way back to loving what you do.
Self-care at both home and work should be a given, a pervasive theme in your life.
At the end of the day what makes us feel peaceful usually is when there is an alignment with our expectations and reality. Harmony per se.
If you find yourself seeking to centre within the mayhem, these mindful tools for handling anxiety at work will help you feel grounded.
Here are seven mindful ways to handle workplace anxiety:
1. Use a calming ritual
In an office, you will always be stimulated, at times over stimulated with all the action around you, so irrespective of stress and anxiety, employing a calming ritual is a good idea.
Playing soft, calming music in the background is a great idea. Create a playlist that you associate with tranquillity, no head banging pandemonium, please!
Over time you will associate a sense of familiarity with the music and it will subliminally calm your senses and motivate you to carry on with your work productively.
Keep the volume in check, you don’t want to be stressing your neighbours out.
2. Beautify your cubicle
You spend most of your day in your cubicle. It shouldn’t just be a place of work, it should be your sanctuary.
Keep it nice and clean. Put up nice artwork in front of you; An inspirational quote; Maybe a bottle of scented oil, that you can use a drop off from time to time.
Tedious projects and crunching numbers can be monotonous, surrounding yourself with positive imagery can boost your spirits and remind you to consciously convert your stress into productive determination.
3. Take regular breaks to meditate.
Mental breaks are imperative. We are bombarded with messages through the day, visual and audio which lead to dispersal of unnecessary energy, distraction and lack of mental focus.
Pausing for a few minutes and looking inwards can help rid one of anxiety. Inside all is calm, we all forget to tap into the Universal life force.
Breathe deeply, sit in silence, pray or meditate, anything that allows your mind to slow down and recharge and release.
4. Don’t hesitate to communicate your anxiety to your co-workers.
If you are feeling overburdened with the work at hand, communicate it to your co-workers. Open communication helps tie a team together. In humbling yourself you are hopefully able to create a stronger community where you lift each other.
Your demeanour gets affected by the level of frustration you are experiencing and can send the wrong signals to your colleagues. If you share your anxiety in a professional and dispassionate manner you make space for mutual understanding and respect leading to cohesion within groups.
A team that is willing to value people will take the time to value personal struggles, too.
5. Daily exercise is imperative.
Exercise helps you release endorphins which help you naturally tackle stress. In addition to decreased feelings of pain, secretion of endorphins leads to feelings of euphoria, modulation of appetite, the release of sex hormones, and enhancement of the immune response. With high endorphin levels, we feel less pain and fewer negative effects of stress. Instead of allowing anxiety and stress to build up inside, make it a point to exercise in order to combat the negative energy.
6. Create a calendar
Chart your work out on a calendar. It should feature every project deadline assigned for as far out as you can plan.
Anxiety arises from fear of the unknown. Remove all possible unknowns. Allocate tasks according to your peak performance timings.
7. Establish boundaries.
In today's digital world, it's easy to feel pressure to be available 24 hours a day. Establish some work-life boundaries for yourself. That might mean making a rule not to check email from home in the evening, or not answering the phone during dinner. Although people have different preferences when it comes to how much they blend their work and home life, creating some clear boundaries between these realms can reduce the potential for work-life conflict and the stress that goes with it.
Pause. Breathe. Reflect. Resume.
And remember to nourish the Buddha within.
