On a day-to-day basis, we spend many hours at work, in a certain environment, with some colleagues and some tasks that we have to prepare. However, this time at work can take a toll on mental health, as stress or anxiety problems can occur that, a priori, are beyond our control.
Managing the emotions that are produced by work may seem complicated, however, it is not impossible. In fact, it is necessary in order not to take the problem home, and of course not to “pay” with the family for anxiety or work stress. Do you want to know some tips to prevent it from affecting your loved ones (family or partner)? Keep reading and take note!
Emotions and work
Human beings are nothing without emotions. In fact, they can become our allies or our enemies depending on what we do with them and how we relate to ourselves, others and the world through them.
Imagine life without emotions: we would be robots. It would not be a good idea to be able to live without emotions, canceling them, for example, because they are necessary for our survival. Therefore, the most intelligent thing would be to learn to know and manage them, knowing the importance of not opposing them or, what is the same, knowing how to grant them, using their strength in a constructive sense.
Emotions are the engine and the very meaning of existence for better or worse, since they decisively determine our experiences, our experiences and our conscious representations. However, this does not happen in the opposite sense, that is, thought and consciousness have very little power to trigger and regulate emotions. Therefore, mind control does not work to manage our emotions. Leonardo Da Vinci already said that “all our knowledge begins with feelings”.
Emotions are produced in response to perceived stimuli, thus activating specific reactions in the person. And these reactions can be modified by repeated or intensely lived experiences, that is, by the learning acquired over the course of life. The most common expressions at work are: fear in a threatening situation, anger as a response to something irritating, sadness as a consequence of painful sensations, and pleasure as a result of pleasant events. Did you know that the most frequent symptoms related to problems at work are anxiety and stress?
What are anxiety and stress?
We can define anxiety as a state of psychophysiological activation that all people have and is triggered when we subjectively perceive a situation as dangerous. Therefore, anxiety protects us from the risks that appear in life, keeps us alert and makes our performance improve. That is to say, it is in many moments effective and a resource for the person.
However, when the activation of anxiety is unjustified or disproportionate in relation to the situation in which the person lives, we are already talking about an anxiety disorder, which can significantly interfere with the person’s life to the point of incapacitating them to face even the most difficult situations. Common.
In this sense, you should know that stress is not the same as anxiety. When a person suffers from stress, what happens is that he ends up suffering certain defensive responses in his own body, which are produced by a variety of both chronic and punctual stimuli:
–Somatic such as palpitations, dizziness, digestive disorders…
–Emotional such as irritability, restlessness, sadness…
–Psychics such as excessive worry, mental fog, difficulty concentrating…
–Social as fight or flight.
These stimuli usually exceed the person’s usual adaptive and physiological resources and activate alarm, resistance and defense responses. And if they are prolonged over time, they can generate what is called burnout syndrome or exhaustion, together with the appearance of psychosomatic pathologies such as cardio circulatory or immune disorders or emotional disorders such as anxiety or depression.
Situations that the person perceives as threatening, especially if they are recurrent, can cause hyper activation in the person and generate an organic pathology, as well as a psychological one.
Consequences of not managing emotions at work
Among the many consequences of not knowing how to manage emotions at work, we leave you with four unbeatable scientific facts:
1 You will not know how to activate your alert system and, therefore, cortisol and adrenaline will rise, which intoxicate your body and mind. Thus, you will begin to have many health problems.
2 You will have difficulties generating oxytocin, so your well-being will worsen, as well as kindness and love for yourself will deteriorate, contributing to a significant worsening when it comes to learning, memorizing and concentrating. You will have leaks of time and productivity.
3 It will decrease serotonin, the hormone of happiness and self-esteem. So each time you will feel more weight and greater difficulty when it comes to going to your job.
4 You will live with less pleasure and satisfaction, thus decreasing the endorphin in your body, the hormone that helps reduce the sensation of physical and emotional pain.
Tips for not paying stress and work anxiety with the family or partner
We know that the emotions we feel have an impact on both our body and our mind, and if we don’t digest them, they get blocked inside us and end up coming out in the worst possible way, it’s a matter of time before this happens. In order to propose some recommendation to learn how to manage these situations, we leave you some tips:
Respect working hours and do not work continuously with overtime because sustained stress over time generates very serious health problems for anyone.
Disconnect from work situations and problems, avoid taking them home, and just leave them in your work environment.
Generate a routine to carry out pleasant activities, be it sports, art, reading… any activity that makes you happy.
Use the following affirmations or similar ones: “today I have done everything that I could, tomorrow I will continue”. “Since the work overload is not up to me, there may be tasks pending for another day.”
If you feel overwhelmed or frustrated for not being able to cope with everything and you leave pending tasks, at the end of your day vent on paper and write how you feel. But then don’t share it, or talk about it with anyone else.
Delegate more of what you do, because you can’t do it all.
Give yourself rest spaces and improve your lifestyle with healthy eating and care for your body and mind.
If you have tried it yourself but you do not get different effects, seek psychological help to learn to manage your emotions at work and thus avoid problems at home.
In short, emotional self-management begins with the person’s ability to recognize their own emotions and the subjective emotional experience that accompanies it, in order to later know how to regulate themselves emotionally and help regulate the emotions of others. In other words, the first step is self-knowledge, which consists of identifying what happens to us specifically and based on what we think, feel and perceive, we must act allowing the emotion to be released without harming anyone, not even oneself.
