Walt Decherd Life Balancing Tips
Stress Management Through Work Life Balance
Walt Decherd Life Balancing Tips By Matt A. Peters
We are all exposed to stress at various stages of our lives these days. It’s become a fact of life. We talk about the reasons for our stress and we discuss various ways to alleviate it quite often, but how often do you talk about how it can upset the work life balance?
The pressure of deadlines to be met and decisions to be made, a lack of cooperation and problems with fellow colleagues, the children who have to be picked up from school, a tense relationship at home, plus a high consumption unhealthy food choices picked up in a rush on the way home from a busy day, all contribute to the reasons we can suffer from stress and stress related illnesses.
What is stress?
Stress is a mixture of psychological and physiological reactions of the human body. In many cases, stress is the emotional side effect of not feeling able to find enough time to do those things you know need to be done.
A good example of a stressful situation is spending more time than you should solving problems at work, while you spend less time with family and friends or less time finding ways to unwind from the pressures of your job.
When your work/life balance is unequal you risk putting excessive strain on yourself physically and emotionally.
How Can You Manage Stress?
Stress management is about developing new perspectives in our lives and learning time management techniques. When demands on your time from work absorb your entire focus to the exclusion of your family obligations, you’re creating stress.
To help manage some of the stress generated from an unbalanced work life, you may need to consider delegating some of your extra work activities. You might also think about addressing your work load with your employer and explaining the need for more assistance with some tasks.
Creating a Balance between Work and Home
When you willingly pour yourself into your work and exclude those people who love you, it’s a bit like admitting that their needs come a poor second-best to what your employer needs from you first. Most people instantly react to this statement by saying that they work so hard in order to provide for their families.
Unfortunately, children don’t see the distinction between you choosing to spend time away from them and needing to provide income. The sad fact is that many marriages also begin to suffer when your work-focus seems more important than the family you’re supposed to be going to work to provide for.
Make a promise to sit down to dinner with your family each night. Not only does this force you to break your work-focus, but it also means sitting down to a relaxed meal with the family who love and need you.
Balancing Christian Values
Returning to our Christian values can also have a profound effect on eliminating stress. It seems that over the years we have let our Christian values slide into the background in favor of the “work at all costs” syndrome. Getting back to our basic values can aid us in managing and eliminating stress.