Reduce stress
Stress sucks. According to the American Psychological Association, stress can result in headache, muscle tension, muscle pain, chest pain, fatigue, upset stomach, insomnia, worry, restlessness, lack of motive, lack of focus, irritability, depression, eating problems, addiction ... and social withdrawal. Yow!
Fortunately, stress isn't sure, even in today's hyper-connected, highly competitive world. Here are six techniques that I have picked up over the years and now use on a daily basis.
Avoid Stressed People
You may not register it, but your physiology is programmed to mirror the physiology of the people around you. (This is a neurological phenomenon resulting from the"mirror neurons" in your brain.) In other words, you can "catch" stress from other people.So although it may not be possible to avoid stressed people all the time, you should try, as far as viable, to limit your contact with such people–at least until you've beat your own stress.
At that point, the opposite effect kicks in, because the calmness you will have achieved is also contagious–provided you've made it into a strong enough habit.
How do you relieve, reduce or remove stress? Leave a comment below. And sign up for the free Sales Source newsletter for weekly column updates and extra success-oriented content.
Renegotiate Your Workload
unhelpful expectations of what you're able of accomplishing are a huge source of stress–anyway of whether those expectations come from yourself, from your boss, or from your customers.The cure for this kind of stress is a dose of reality.
Look at how much time you've got to spend, assess the amount of work that needs to be done, and, install on that, be realistic about what's actually going to get done. If you're expected to fullfil A,B,C and D, and there's only time to achieve three of the four, decide–or force your boss to decide–which three will actually get done and which one will not.