In order to understand stress and how to manage stress, you need to know how people respond. Specifically, people need to know how to overcome negative self talk. To make this practical, I will describe how Jane operates in the workplace.

What has happened to 42-year-old Jane? No previous stress attacks or mental-health problems. But she came to me because she was very stressed at work. She felt she was being criticised all the time and that her colleagues did not respect her productivity. She became socially phobic. He has difficulty going out with her husband. She hides away from people when she goes to parties.

Jane is experiencing work stress and this is a major problem. Everything seems to be too much of a burden for her. She is having physical reactions of nausea and illness. Her work demands are too much for her and she can’t cope and she feels depressed and anxious all the time.

There is no doubt that she is much less productive and accurate with her work. In sum, HER SYSTEM IS OVER-LOADED with worry, concern, anxiety, fears, and she has lost most of her self-confidence. Does this sound familiar to you? Can you put yourself is Jane’s place? Can you begin to understand how stressed she is? Do you feel that life’s events have over-run you and you can’t cope? Do you feel constantly under threat, tired and unresponsive? Are your friends and/or your partner asking you what is wrong with you? Are you dissatisfied with your life? Do you feel you can’t cope the way you used to? Is your work constantly suffering from your emotional state?

If you believe that this fits you, you are having problems with stress at work. We seem to be working longer and being stress more. Some people think this is acceptable. Reported cardiac illnesses increased after the 9/11 attack. High blood pressure, strokes and related disorders increased. With emotional trauma comes physical ailments. When people are unwell emotionally they don’t function well at work.

There are many stresses in the workplace. But what in particular elevate our stress levels? Unfortunately there are many workplace stress triggers.

These include excessive workplace demands. Poor management and poor communication in the workplace cause stress. Oddly enough, poor relationships at home can cause workplace stress as much as interpersonal conflict with colleagues.

What is the best way to cope in the workplace? In large measure its up to you. You can change jobs but this is not very effective. One clever way to solve the problem of your boss is to list his or her name with a headhunter in the hope that someone else will employ your boss. From my experience the major problem with stress at work is poor role specification. Different perspectives on your work responsibilities will cause stress. The question remains how to solve this problem appropriately.

Negative thinking is one of the greatest causes of unresolved workplace stress. Remember that you are what you think and you have to take responsibility for the changes in your life. If you try you can deal with the workplace stress. First you must understand the consequences of negative self talk. Our emotional states are often determined by what we are thinking. We spend a lot of our time with self conversations.

I know this sounds simple but it is true. We constantly run ourselves down and criticize ourselves. We have probably 10 times more negative and dysfunctional ’self-thoughts’ than we have positive self-thoughts. More than anything I can think of, this tendency to be continually self-critical causes the greatest tension. And guess what, if we have friends, family, loved ones who also criticize us unrelentingly, we are really in trouble. The challenge is simple - if we want to improve our lives we have to change our thinking.

Tags: Mental Health

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