We are not, habitually, a nation of stress-busters. If anything, stress is busting us. According to a report this week by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, stress has overtaken the usual suspects – RSI, disease, back pain – to become the most common cause of long-term absence from work. Tighter budgets, tougher workloads and, most of all, the looming threat of job losses are to blame.
Conventional stress-busting, it seems, is failing us. So perhaps it's time for some new ideas. Here are five top tips for hardcore workplace stress relief:
Connect with nature
Turn your office into a tropical paradise with the sounds of the rainforest. If you play them off an iPod you'll be asked to turn it off, but fill the office with actual macaws, frogs and gibbons and your colleagues just won't know what to do. You will: chillax.
Win small battles
Someone in the office driving you particularly mad? Stroll over and offer to pick them up a tea, then come back with a coffee instead. You can safely pretend it was forgetfulness. They'll know it was really spite.
Sweat it out
Exercise is the most effective weapon in the fight against stress. Unless, of course, you're a fitness instructor, and you're stressed because you're doing too much exercise. If that's you, try to nap it out. For the rest of us though, exercise is vital, so what better way to bring down your stress levels than by taking up boxing and inviting hated colleagues and superiors to join you for a lunchtime bout? We all daydream about punching the boss. Why not do it? The exercise will help them de-stress too.
Get some perspective
When things get really tough, try to remind yourself: it doesn't really matter. Those books can go unmarked, those markets unanalysed, that coronary unperformed. In the grand scheme of things, turning up in court to defend your client is as pointless as polishing bread. Which is not to say don't do it. Just do it in the comforting knowledge that all life is futile and will soon end.
If all else fails, get out of there
Fake your death and embark on a new life in the Bahamas. It's never too late to begin again. Just remember: futile. Will soon end.
