Just Breathe

When someone tells you to ‘just breathe’ in order to calm down, you may want to listen. Not just because of the obvious reason ‘you’ll pass out otherwise’, breathing exercises can decrease stress, improve mental alertness, and raise energy levels.

When you need to just sit back and ‘take a breather’ try this exercise:

Shallow Breath Exercise: When sitting into a chair, hold your arms out in front of you at shoulder height. Inhale 3 short breaths through your nose, lifting your arms out to the sides and over your head on the second and third breath. Drop your arms to the side and exhale through your mouth in one large breath. Repeat 10 to 12 times.

What do you do to de-stress?

Work Stress And You

For workers everywhere, the troubled economy may feel like an emotional roller coaster.

Layoffs and budget cuts result in increased fear, uncertainty and higher levels of stress.

Since job and workplace stress grow in times of economic crisis, it’s important to learn new and better ways of coping with the pressure. The ability to manage stress in the workplace can make the difference between success or failure on the job. Your emotions are contagious, and stress has an impact on the quality of your interactions with others.

The better you are at managing your own stress, the more you’ll positively affect those around you and the less other people’s stress will negatively affect you.

There are a variety of steps you can take to reduce both your overall stress levels and the stress you find on the job and in the workplace. These include:

• Taking responsibilityforimprovingyour physical and emotional well-being.

• Avoiding pitfalls by identifying knee jerk habits and negative attitudes that add to the stress you experience at work.

• Learning better communication skills to ease and improve your relationships with management and coworkers.

What do you do to relieve stress at the workplace?