Manage Your Stress at Work to Prevent Depression

Depression is a tough thing to deal with. It steals your motivation and your energy. By making it hard to choose a course of action and then follow through, it creates its own downward spiral. You know you need help, but it seems to take so much effort to find it.

A growing understanding of depression means that it’s easier to take steps to prevent it in the first place. Like with any disease, prevention of depression is certainly better than treating it once it sets it.

Work place stress can trigger episodes of depression. Researchers found that people who experience ongoing stress at work are nearly twice as likely to battle depression than people who are faced with workplace stress and find ways to reduce it.

That means if you’re dealing with a stressful workplace, you’ll do yourself a favor by finding ways to reduce the stress.

The first step is to identify the source of your stress. Do you have to deal with a hostile boss or coworker? Are you constantly struggling with high-pressure deadlines? Do you just hate what you do?

Understanding the source of your stress can guide you in the best ways to deal with it. Finding a working compromise with hostile coworkers or taking a project management class to help you better deal with deadlines are two ideas.

There are also things you can do in the course of your day that can help to reduce the stress you are feeling.

First, recognize and accept that things take time to complete. Trying to force yourself to complete an hour-long task in a half hour will only frustrate you and negatively impact the quality of your work.

Next, make sure you set clear boundaries with your coworkers and your boss. If somebody speaks to you in a way that’s abusive, let them know that it’s not okay. If you have a full schedule and are given another project that makes your deadlines impossible, ask for priorities from your boss and be clear about when things can reasonably be done.

Finally, take time each hour to breathe properly. When you get stressed, you tend to take shallow breaths. This puts more stress on your body. At the top of each hour, pause and focus on breathing deeply for a minute.

Reducing work place stress takes planning and it might even require that you stretch your comfort zone a little bit. But it’s well worth it in the end. You’ll do better work and enjoy better mental health.

Stay well,
Meghan Krohn