Part 2: How To Recover from Emotional Stress at Work

Photo by Artem Kovalev on Unsplash

In our last article, we talked about how to recognize emotional stress at work. In this article, we’ll share a few healthy ways to manage and recover from emotional stress in the workplace. 

Managing and recovering from emotional stress are very different. When you’re in the middle of a straining project at work, you need ways to manage the stress you’re currently under while maintaining productivity. After a stressful project, you should invest in recovering from that stress. We recognize that there are varying stress levels and various methods for dealing with work-related stress

What are the healthy ways to manage emotional stress?

Take breaks throughout your day. Create the habit of taking healthy breaks throughout your workday. A five- to ten-minute break may be the simple, effective deterrent of stress that you need to complete your tasks. 

Communicate with your direct supervisor and human resources team. If you have too much on your plate, you need to tell your supervisor. Depending on the leadership styles in your office, it’s possible that your supervisor is unaware of how much work you have to complete in a short time period. Redirect projects to another team or coworker, if possible. Also, reach out to your human resources team for healthy practices and communication for managing emotional stress. If you have a long to-do list, you may communicate to your supervisor and HR team the value of an intern on your team or contract out some projects.  

Eliminate distractions while at work. Have you ever been sitting at your desk and noticed that your phone is within reaching distance? Before you can even finish your thought, your hand is reaching and immediately opens your most frequently visited app. Or maybe you’re obsessed with games like Wordle and you find yourself opening a new window and spending time trying to figure out the word for the day. These are distractions! They deplete your focus and productivity. When you lose time to these distractions, you end your day feeling more stressed. Your workload remains and your time has decreased. The following days will be full of frantically completing poor-quality projects. For your mental and emotional health, eliminate your distractions and use your time wisely to complete your workload. 

Leave work at work. Once the day has ended, put your tomorrow-self in the best possible starting place. Then, walk away. It’s so important to leave work at work to relieve emotional stress. One of the most common results of remote work is the sense that employees are working extended days or working abnormal hours. Instead of shutting down computers and leaving a physical building, the pandemic introduced a dynamic where the only thing separating the employee from work was a laptop lid. More employees needed to set and enforce boundaries to walk away from work and enjoy the other aspects of their lives. While your job may not be the primary emotional stress trigger, walking away from your desk at the end of the day alleviates the minor stress your job contributes to your overall state of being.

Take time off when you need it. Don’t let your stress reach a level that affects your physical health. Use your vacation time and take a few days to distance yourself from work-related stress. Many times, stress arises and employees feel that they can’t take time off until the project is complete. While you do want to be mindful of your deadlines, you can be more productive stepping away than powering through the emotional stress.

How do you recover from emotional stress?

For employees who have been in a state of emotional stress for long periods of emotional stress, consider creating a recovery plan. This concept allows you to take small steps towards moving past the stress of your latest project. To recover from this stressful period of time, you may consider building a recovery plan. 

Most people already follow this concept without the details written out. It’s the self-care or decompressing ritual you go through at the end of a particularly stressful day at work. A recovery plan is a tool that helps put abstract concepts into actionable items. 

The goal of this recovery plan is to protect the employee from jumping from one stressful project to another. Employees can think through and intentionally disengage from the project. Here are just a few simple examples:

At work:

• Take a longer lunch

•  Take the next day off

• Grab an extra coffee in the breakroom

After work:

• Order from your favorite restaurant.

• Watch your favorite TV show/movie

• Read a new book.