Stress?

Over the past couple of days I have been dealing with a higher level of stress at work. Its been overwhelming - making me anxious, anger, frustrated, emotional, and many more unstable emotions. I hate that feeling of not being myself.

Through it all it was my faith that God is in control and that I have loving friends and an understanding husband to see me through those tough times.

I have been reading up on stress and how to deal with it properly. And I have found a few articles online that give advice:

1. Start your day off right. Eat a good breakfast, be organized and planned about getting out the door without stress and I believe including a quiet "devotional" time. For me this includes going to bed on time and making sure I have a consistent wake up time allowing for a non-rushed morning routine.

2. Understanding my work requirements. They suggest that if you are always guessing at whether or not you are doing your job correctly or if you are always being thrown new projects/tasks this will increase stress. If that's the case you should communicate with your supervisor. For me I think I would apply this to my work in that I need to know what tasks I need to accomplish and how to prioritize each.

3. Stay away from unneeded work stress. Such as gossip and hard to work with coworkers. I need to pay attention to how much I gossip and definitely need to learn how to avoid conflicts with fellow staff members. Since college I have learned that they best way possible to deal with hard to get along with people is to pray for them and the relationship between me and them.

4. Being and staying organized. I tend to think I am a very organized person - but I'm having difficulties with this both at work and at home. I need to come up with a method that works for both.

5. Be comfortable. Look at your work area - desk, chair, noise levels. Make sure that there is nothing that would irritate to make stress levels spike even more. I think when office times get stressful I need to turn to prayer and my iPod full of good calming music.

6. Forget multi-tasking. I use to think that multi-tasking was the best thing I ever did. I got so much more done and faster. But now as I see myself trying to do it at work its not working. Which goes back to planning out your day and staying organized. I need to review why I think I need to multi-task and how to focus on each task individually.

7. Exercise regularly. Studies show that exercising can lower your stress levels. And of course its just plain good for you. Can I work exercise into my work schedule and my home schedule - especially during peak times?

8. Keep perfectionism in check. Rather than setting my goals on being perfect or performing at the perfect standard I need to set accessible goals.

9. Use the ride home for work to relax and cool down after a hard day. Avoid stewing about the days stresses over and over. Pray about it and leave it there.

So that's what I have found so far - interesting tips on how to manage stress. Now the hard part - taking the advice and applying it daily.