What To Do When Things Suck Or Stress You Out

Stress is part of the experience of being a human being and is paramount to our survival as a species, but in this day and age we can often feel stress which is disproportionate to the level of threat we are actually experiencing. How can we best handle this type of stress in our daily lives so that it doesn’t impact our productivity and well-being?

While we can’t fully eliminate stress as it is part of our biology as humans, there are healthy ways to manage it. Talking about stress management is a conversation we should all have in order to create as pleasant of a work experience for everyone as possible.

How Can We Manage Stress?

Here are our CEO Vlad’s tips of what to do when stressed:

1. Write down what’s stressing you: It’s scientifically proven to actually help you if you journal. Once you write down what’s stressing you, it’ll be clear. It’ll be out of your head and on paper. This act in it of itself can calm you down and relax you. Now that you have the problem(s) written down, solving for your variables like a math equation becomes much easier whether you choose to share it with others or not.
2. Once the problem or problems are written out, one of my favorite things to do is to think of 1% I can improve to feel better, even if it’s just taking a deep breath, taking a nap or getting a good night’s sleep. Those all count: remember, even just 1% counts.
3. If you’re too stressed to work, anxious, etc. just tell the team you can’t work that day. Make sure to work out the problem in the future though, but feel comfortable taking the day off. Many team members have been sick, etc. and taking a day off, you will be fine doing that too.
4. Remember people have solved whatever it is you’re facing or some similar version of it. There are books written on every topic; even handling problems that have no solutions and still finding the hidden treasure in them. Here is one of my favorite books that deals with problem solving: https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Obstacle-Is-the-Way-Audiobook/B00K252ET8?pf_rd_p=6a5ce8e4-798e-4a64-8bc5-71dcf66d673f&pf_rd_r=3DHB0E394F2NJ5CAMFK3&ref=a_lib_c4_libItem_B00K252ET8
5. Another book we like to refer to is Decisive: a really good decision making book: https://www.audible.com/pd/Decisive-Audiobook/B00B3YV3Z8?qid=1580777693&sr=1-1&pf_rd_p=e81b7c27-6880-467a-b5a7-13cef5d729fe&pf_rd_r=JED0F91CFR1BGJPP8J5P&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1
6. Know that deep down we’re all on the same team: We are here for you and want you to succeed with or without us. We want the best. If we don’t all succeed none of us succeeds. This is because a great company isn’t built on an unsustainable culture. This may mean partners need to pay for themselves less to reward others or we go out of our way to help each other, at the end of the day if we serve each other.
7. That coworker that did that annoying thing? They’re trying to serve the client as best as possible as you are.
8. Remember: “this too shall pass,” because it will. At the end of the day because life is frail and everything passes.
9. In fact I personally wrote an essay on depression years ago during some of my personal lowest periods, you can check it out here: https://medium.com/@vladmkrtumyan_45485/dont-let-the-terrorists-win-10ff5ec5ef59 In this essay I talk about how all pain is manageable, death is inevitable, we are all gonna die, so it’s worth sticking through whatever troubles you have and see if a problem is resolved.

The Stress Management Process

Stress management is an ongoing effort and therefore needs to be an ongoing discussion. It’s also not a problem that one person or manager alone can fix: To think that one person can fix everything would be either egotistical, crazy or both. Our personal and work lives each have their own sources of stress and are interconnected, as much as we try our best to keep them separate. It takes a team effort to work through these sources of stress and find a solution. We humans are social beings and therefore need each other in order to survive.

How Our Team Manages Stress

We asked our team members at Logic Inbound what they do when they get stressed. Here is what they said:

• Visualization and practice
• Asking for help
• Journaling
• Work on preventing the source of the stress
• Working with a team rather than by myself
• I tend to get stressed when I’m handed many tasks to get done and my brain can’t remember all of it. So what I like to do is write everything I need to get done and go down the list to complete it.
• Taking action instead of putting off a task
• Spend time with loved ones or pets, like a dog
• Get good sleep!
• Exercise: It doesn’t have to be an hour jogging on the treadmill; even a 5 minute walk around the block can help
• The number one way to get out of your head, de-stress and get an emotional boost is to find something you can do to help someone else. It works every time.
• Stress often happens when I get a client complaint about certain things on top of what’s going on at work and with my personal life. I usually step away from the computer when it gets stressful and watch comedy. Imagine your brain is like a computer that overheats when you’re stressed out. So, you want to cool it down by doing something that relaxes your mind.
• When getting back to work, this is when I hit the restart button, and start to unwind. I look at the issue that causes me stress in the first place, which is the client complaint, and try to fix it with the advice and support from the manager. Usually, the issue gets fixed within a day or two, and I feel less overwhelmed to continue the work.
• If your source of stress is ongoing and feels unmanageable, consider talking to a licensed mental health counselor and/or making some lifestyle changes. Sometimes we take on too much in our lives and we need to make some changes to our routine in order to make our daily lives more manageable.

Caring Is Our #1 Value

At Logic Inbound, Caring is our #1 value. We care about our team members and how they handle stress and we care about our clients and community as well. We hope you will find these stress management tips helpful and if you have any to add, be sure to share them with us!