Watershed Solutions Blog

Posts Tagged ‘stress buster’

In 30 minutes you are presenting to the board of directors. As you stand in front of the elevator panting, you recall this morning’s mishaps. You missed the bus because you forgot to print an extra copy of your report, leaving you no other choice but to run the 10 blocks to your office building in the -15 ̊C weather. You bolted through the streets cutting traffic and spilt your double macchiato all over your neatly pressed shirt. Now as you watch the elevator descend you take a moment to catch your breath. (Sigh) “What to do?” You may not realize but by sighing you’re actually relieving your stress. According to Joan Borysenko, sighing relieves tension by relaxing the diaphragm allowing your next breath to come from your abdomen rather than your chest. Why not take a few minutes to sigh with Wendy Woods, Principal of Watershed Training Solutions, as she divulges one of her favourite stress busters-you will be relieved you did.

Image courtesy of federico stevanin/FreedigitalPhotos.net

Breathing is something we all do but most of us don’t do it properly. We breathe shallowly and quickly so we don’t get the benefits that our bodies need from a decent supply of oxygen into our lungs. Another wonderful benefit of proper breathing is that it can quickly help us manage stress.

Here are 3 quick ways to improve your breathing:

1. Check in at least once a day with your breath to see if you are breathing from your chest or your stomach. Try closing your eyes, putting your left hand on your chest and your right hand on your stomach below the navel. Breathe in. If you are breathing from your chest, you should feel the hand that is on your stomach rise and fall with each breath. The one on your chest should remain in the same position.
2. Sigh because it is your body’s natural way of coping with stress. So have some fun, and make sure to exhale through the mouth.
3. Laugh. When you laugh, you exhale much more deeply so the next breath will be from the diaphragm not the chest. So giggle your way to breathing properly!

Interested in this week’s tip? Check out these great reads:

First off, we’d like to thank all of you who responded to our query regarding workplace stress. In response to your comments, we’d like to help you manage one of your top stresses: email overload. Although most of us have been using email for a number of years, many of us still struggle with managing it effectively, making email overload one of the top workplace stresses. Daily, our inboxes are flooded with a mix of relevant and often not-so-relevant messages, and the task of reading and responding to them can be daunting. Stever Robbins, author of 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More and host of the popular Get-It-Done-Guy podcast, has come up with some strategies for not only managing your own load, but also, some tips on how to become better email senders yourselves. In part one of this two part blog, we’re going to provide you with some techniques for sending email more effectively. Be sure to check back next Thursday for part two, tips to manage your own mountain of mail.

Summarize Your Subject

Often we describe the email we are sending in the subject line, when really, the subject line should summarize what the email is about so that the reader is able to quickly scan their inbox to recognize which messages are relevant and why.

BAD SUBJECT-Deadline Discussion

GOOD SUBJECT- Recommend we ship product April 25th

Copy Carefully

When you copy others into an email, make sure you pointedly reference why this email is relevant and important to everyone you are sending it to and what each person should be taking away from the information provided.

BAD CC:

To: Abby Gail, Bill Fold, Cindy Rella

Subject: Web site design draft is done

The Web site draft is done. Check it out in the attached file. The design firm will need our responses by the end of the week.

GOOD CC:

To: Abby Gail, Bill Fold, Cindy Rella

Subject: Web site design draft is done

AG: DECISION NEEDED. Get marketing to approve the draft

BF: PLEASE VERIFY. Does the slogan capture our branding?

CR: FYI, if we need a redesign, your project will slip.

The Web site draft is done. Check it out in the attached file. The design firm will need our responses by the end of the week.

Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

1. Take a walk- Go for a walk even if it’s for only 5 minutes. It will get you away from your desk, give you an opportunity to view your stress/stressors from a different perspective and allow you to return to work with a fresh perspective. Besides the exercise will do you good.

2. Grab a cup of tea- Certain herbal teas are known for their calming and relaxing properties. Try a cup of chamomile, jasmine or licorice tea when you need a break from stress.

3. Let your nose relax you- There are a number of essential oils that are known for their relaxation properties (e.g. lavender, basil, neroli, petitgrain or sandalwood). Put a few drops on a tissue and inhale. Soon you should start to feel more relaxed.

In the last few weeks many of us have gone through a stressful time of year; tax season. Nothing is quite like the scramble for documents, the dread of mistakes, and the fear of Revenue Canada. It is fitting that the week following the tax deadline is Mental Health Week.

According to studies done; over half of Canadians experience stress as a daily occurrence, and struggle with the results to their health . Yet many of us don’t actually manage the stress and instead ignore it putting ourselves at risk.
Chronic stress, or prolonged stress, is what causes many of the harmful effects associated with stress, such as; depression, anxiety, high blood pressure, increased use of caffeine, alcohol or illegal drugs, high cholesterol, and deterioration of interpersonal relationships. Many of these impact each other creating even bigger problems. For example, a poor diet and poor sleep habits combined lead to a weaker immune system and illness. In this way, stress can cause a downward spiral of health, one that has been seen to lead to an early death.

Hence during Mental Health Week, we are providing a number of tips and solutions to help you combat stress as well as our Stress Busters e-book, filled with 5 minutes strategies, which is now available with a free hour of one-on-one coaching.
So drink a little less coffee today and spend time with people you care about and start dealing with any stress you might have piled behind the closet door. First, take a minute to watch this video from our friends at the Canadian Mental Health Association, and share it with your friends and family, and together let’s make this mental health week count.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDTJ1d4woyg&feature=player_embedded#!]

The Healing Power of Humor is a must read for anyone who has ever faced life’s challenges. Allen Klein shows you how to use humor effectively even in somber moments because laughter helps lighten the load.

Allen is no stranger to pain; he gained his inspiration from losing his beloved wife in a three year battle with a rare liver disease . He discusses how it is not always easy to laugh away your troubles and it can often take work to find the hilarity on the really difficult days. However, once you can find the humor in your situation, it suddenly feels less daunting. As Klein says “Humor in the darkest of places is a sign of emergence from grief and depression”. Through his techniques and funny stories you will find the advantage in your disadvantages, change your attitude and maybe even add a little nonsense to your life. If you can learn to see the humor in a bad situation it may not solve the problem or make your losses any less real, but it will give you the strength and perspective to deal with it.

The healing power of humor is an easy read with 14 small chapters, one lesson for each day. Each of these details a technique and ends with a ‘learn to laugh’ exercise giving you a practical way to incorporate laughter into your life. Having tried a few of the techniques, I can say that Allen isn’t kidding when he says that “in two weeks you will have shed some pounds of excess gloom”. Try the joke-jitsu exercise, which like jujitsu the martial arts form, allows you to gain advantage over your opponent, or in this case the bad situation, by adding humor to it. For example “The bad news is that we had a flood at the warehouse. The good news is that the water is being diverted into the new employee swimming pool”

For those with demanding jobs and personal lives, these techniques will help improve your ability to deal with stress. As Allen said, “By focusing our energy elsewhere humor can diffuse our stressful events. It releases built up tension and pops the cork off such things such as fear, hostility, rage and anger.” In addition to being good for your health, the stress busting abilities of a good laugh can make you a more patient manager or a more engaged employee.