Stop Feeling Overwhelmed and Exhausted at Work With These 4 Helpful Tips

Work can get to the best of us. Whether it’s through immense workloads, a need to dedicate all your focus to a task, or even the physical rigours of some roles, our work life can sometimes feel like more of a chore than we’d ideally like. 

In extreme cases, this can lead to the dreaded “burnout” – a feeling of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion, which can leave us experiencing high levels of stress. One study recently found as many as 73% of respondents had experienced this at some point in their career, with as many as 83% of them saying it had bled over into their personal lives.

And, with as many as 15% of working age adults believed to have some sort of mental health disorder, the combination of burnout and underlying conditions can quickly take a huge toll on your wider health and happiness.

But it doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom. While there’s no cure-all approach to managing exhaustion and stress at work, there are steps you can take to alleviate the issues and reduce their impact. Here are four helpful ways that you can start to feel better about your job.

1.   Assess your organisational skills

One of the biggest triggers of stress at any job is feeling overloaded by your workload. While this can sometimes be unrealistic to manage, there’ll also be occasions where a shift in your organisational abilities could make life considerably easier.

One handy trick is to write down everything you need to get done over the course of the coming week, and try to plan out how much time you require for each task. Once this is done, you can schedule it into a weekly chart.

Also think about creating a weekly working schedule tailored around your job. For example, you could do all admin on a Monday, work on the core aspect of your job Tuesday-through-Thursday, then leave Friday as a wildcard day to tie up any loose ends which appeared during the week.

2.   Get a defined baseline of your manager’s expectations

Sometimes we put undue pressure on ourselves to perform to a certain level. While having goals is great, unclear or poorly defined parameters run the risk of leaving us feeling overburdened and possibly even frantic.

The easiest way to alleviate this issue is to sit down and have an open and honest chat with your direct line manager. They’ll be able to give you a clearer picture of exactly what they expect from you. Once you have this, you’ll be able to start setting consistent weekly objectives, rather than arbitrary self-defined targets which might be way off the mark.

3.   Don’t be afraid to take a mental health day

While something of a taboo subject in the past, mental health days are now seen as a necessary tool in the arsenal of any modern worker. They provide us with the chance to take a much-needed break from a potentially stressful situation, allowing us to unwind and find a sense of peace again.

If you’re unsure what you should actually do on one of these days off, be sure to keep these tips for taking a restorative day in mind:

●       Do something creative

●       Meet up with friends and family

●       Be sure to get fresh air and change your usual scenery

●       Use the day as an excuse to organise at home

●       Make sure you get plenty of sleep

●       Disconnect from work totally

Ultimately, remember that a mental health day looks different for everyone. While some might find going on a 10km hike freeing, others might just want to snuggle up with a good book.

4.   Make sure to build some down-time into your day

It can be easy to forgo taking a lunch break if we’re particularly stressed. But having this down-time actually allows our minds to recharge – meaning our production levels tend to get boosted in the second half of the day, compared to if we had just pushed on without pausing.

If you’re bad at turning on and off again, make sure to set a clearly defined timer to alert you when you need to go back to work. Think about what you want to do with your 30-to-60 minute break ahead of time, so you really get the most out of it.

Do you feel better prepared to deal with the stress and rigours of a hectic work environment? Make sure to keep these tips in mind the next time you’re feeling anxious on the job.

Guest Author Bio - Curtis Lethusula

Curtis grew up in a sleepy hamlet in Canada, before upping sticks and shifting his life to the not-so-mean streets of Henley. He’s an accomplished violinist, and has a passion for conservation and environmental protection.