Excessive Workplace Stress

Although workplace stress is normal, extreme stress can hinder an employee’s productivity and performance. Undue stress can also negatively affect a person’s physical and emotional health and could cause damaging impact to one’s relationships and home life. Excessive stress could be a significant factor on whether you will fail or succeed in your job. Just like many situations in life, you cannot control everything that happens in the workplace, what you can do is to control how you react to these stressors.

While excessive stress is bad for employees, the right amount of stress could be a good thing. A little bit of pressure can help employees focus on the task at hand, be energized, and take on new challenges at work. Working under the right amount of stress helps an employee perform to the best of their abilities, ensuring that they are at the top of their game and is an asset to the business that they are working for.

The question now is what situations fall into excessive stress in the workplace? If an employee has been exposed to a traumatic event in the workplace if the employee experiences violence, harassment, or bullying while at work, and unreasonable expectations from the employee are some of the things that can be considered as stressors that cause excessive stress.

In California, employees may file a claim for excessive stress on their workers’ compensation insurance. The employee must be able to prove that workplace events or conditions are the predominant cause of the extreme stress. While workers’ compensation usually takes effect the day you get employed, compensation for stress requires an employee to be working for the company for at least six months. The reason is that stress usually develops over a period and filing for stress compensation on your first week of working means that your job is not the predominant cause of your stress.

Stress claims are some of the most challenging types of claim to win since they are difficult to prove. It’s best to keep your stress at work at a manageable level to help you avoid filing a stress claim. Here are some tips that may help you:

1. Communicate. – A burden shared is a burden lifted. The simple act of talking to someone who you trust about stressors in your work can help you. You don’t need to find someone who will fix all your problems for you, what you need is someone who will listen. Try to cultivate a reliable support system inside and outside of the workplace.

2. Start getting healthy. – People tend to overwork themselves when they are under a lot of stress in their workplace. They think that working through the stress will help them, but this could only worsen the situation. Try to make time to do physical exercises; physical exercise help produce endorphins which can elevate your moods. A healthier body also means that you’re equipped to handle stress better. Eating healthy can also help you manage your stress. Food rich in Omega-3 fatty acids can help boost your mood.

3. Manage your time. – A schedule of your daily tasks can help you become better at stress management. If you don’t feel like you’re behind schedule every day, you won’t be feeling too much stress. Do not over-commit yourself and learn to say no if you know that you won’t be able to handle tasks. Prioritize urgent tasks and responsibilities that you don’t like doing since this means that you have the rest of the workday to improve your mood.

If you still feel like you’re suffering excessive stress at work, contact us at Hogan Injury for expert legal advice.

None of the content on Hoganinjury.com is legal advice nor is it a replacement for advice from a certified lawyer. Please consult a legal professional for further information.

Source: https://www.hoganinjury.com/excessive-workplace-stress/

START AGAIN

To everything that we don't know that we are missing

To all the lies that we have ever sold ourselves

To the love that we let go and now regret it

To the life we could have had but never chased

Take a breath, let it out, START AGAIN

To every hope and every dream and every challenge

To every heartbreak every failure every tear

To every chance we were just too afraid to reach for

To all the promises we’ve ever left unkept

Take a breath, let it out, START AGAIN

There is no need to worry, what has happened, has happened.

Analyze what happened and what you did wrong, and what you

could have done better.

Take a breath, let it out, START AGAIN

Some parts Culled from Start Again by Falana. Watch Video or listen to the audio below and enjoy. START AGAIN

Start Again mp3

The Law of Attraction according to Celebrities

DON'T WAIT - Inspirational Speech from Tyrion Lannister of Game of Thrones (Video)

No Easter Sunday without a Good Friday

This is the 4th week of Easter. We are Easter people and Alleluia is our song. This is because Easter brought us Glory, Redemption and Salvation and Alleluia is the Easter song.

But most importantly, there would have been no Easter Sunday if there was no Good Friday. Jesus Christ had to die for our sins and win the battle of the underworld and open the gates of heaven for all of us which we would enter if we believe in him and do all that he has taught and instructed us. And oh he didn't just die, but he suffered greatly. Isaiah puts it perfectly by saying 

"Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions" - Isaiah 53:4-5

and 

"And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violent action and there was no deceit in his mouth" - Isaiah 53:9

In another case, the story of Lazarus would not have been great had Lazarus not died and Jesus knew this. It was to bring Glory to God (John 11:4).

In the footballing world, we see how teams had amazing comebacks when it seemed they had almost lost a game a common example being The Miracle of Dammam and The Miracle of Istanbul where Nigeria U-20 team came back from 4 goals down to the Soviet Union in 1989 to win 5-4 and Liverpool from 3 goals down to AC Milan to win on penalties in the 2005 Champions League Final.

So the same with your case/problem/condition/challenge or whatever it is that seems like it is even getting worse. Who are you to give up on yourself or give up on your heavenly father. Remember there is no Easter Sunday without a Good Friday and the glory is greater when the situation is at its worst. One thing is you must hold on to is BELIEF and continue pushing on. Like Mike Ditka says, "You are only a loser when you quit trying".

May God who sent us his only son to redeem us glory himself in our lives so that we will always remain Easter people. Heavenly Father show yourself! Remain Blessed!

Be Kind

As Jesus says in the Gospel about The Good Samaritan 

"Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?" - Luke 10:36. 

What we do, in terms of the love we show to people other than our neighbors, friends, and family is what really counts and not what we are normally expected to do. That is not to say you should start ignoring family and friends but rather start doing extra. I think meeting kind people is a gift. The world is need of more kindness, love, and charity and I believe we can gift ourselves to each other. At least one person in your lifetime should shed a tear of happiness out of the kindness you have shown to him/her in this life. If you think someone is lost and you can help then do so, give gifts, leave your change sometimes, smile more, take someone's progress seriously(pray, follow up, support and advice), be more receptive and be selfless. Be kind.

How To Avoid Burnout

Step back from what you’re doing

When you spend a lot of time running software teams and making courses, you need to regularly step back from what you are doing to stop you from getting stale with ideas. Creating Pluralsight courses is quite an intense process and it is very easy to get writer’s block when writing your modules. Doing something else even for a few hours helps you to get unblocked. –Stephen Haunts

Find activities outside your profession

I find it is critical to be involved in activities outside of my profession in order to prevent burn out. It is when I do these non-work/non-profession-based activities such as R/C that I can de-stress and free my mind to think clearer and more effectively. –Lee Atchison

Create variety

For me, I get burned out by lack of variety. So to combat that, I try to create things. For example, one month I might be playing around creating a VS Code extension, the next, I might be creating an app in a new language that I’d use around the house. For me, combining learning something new, and then applying it in a tool (even if I’m the only one to use it) and getting away from code for other interests all help keep burnout away. –Nate Taylor

Don’t live in go-mode

Living a balanced life lets you live better and longer. You’ll stress less about work because you have other irons in the fire.  Read a book for fun sometimes— don’t always have yourself in go-mode. –Jared DeMott

Do something different

It’s important to have other interests outside your profession to prevent burnout. This is something I often struggle with, but being burnt out removes a lot of the enjoyment, so it’s important to do something different every now and again to refresh your passion and interests. –Josh Duffney

Let go every now and then

Even though my work and my hobby are about the same thing, it’s important to be able to let go of things every now and then. It will boost your productivity and creativity even more afterwards. And of course, it’s always possible to download a Pluralsight course to your tablet and watch it offline for those moments that you miss your passion too much! –Gill Cleeren

Pursue other interests

Pursuing interests outside the scope of my work helps me to become a well-rounded person and prevents burnout.  Sometimes stepping away for a bit gives you a clearer mind when you return. –Alex Wolf 

Create work/life balance

There are different kinds of burnout. There's the burnout that comes from weeks and months of 60+ hour weeks on an intense project, the burnout that comes from years sitting in front of a computer doing largely the same thing and the burnout that comes from constantly learning. For the first–try finding jobs that don't believe in overworking developers and take real vacations between projects. For the second–be sure to create work/life balance and spend significant time on non-technology related projects. For the third–well, if you're not prepared to constantly be learning, you're really in the wrong career. –Dan Appleman

Take care of your body

Eating right and avoiding junk and excess food. If you're hyped up or hungover, it puts unnecessary strain on your mind and body. –Ben Piper

Find your motivation

Understand your passions and work from them as much as possible. If you're enjoying what you do, if you're learning and growing, you won't burn out. Also, understand how motivation works for your particular field.  I've found that reading the book "Drive" by Daniel Pink has completely transformed my understanding of motivation, performance, productivity and burnout in software and technology work. –Floyd May

Unplug and take time to breathe

My sister has a lake house in Wisconsin. A week or preferably two of unplugged fresh air and friends/family really refreshes me. And the rest of the year there is yoga. Find your "lake house" and take time to breathe. –Deborah Kurata

Head to the great outdoors

I head to the great outdoors—either a little 4 wheeling up in the mountains or play some paintball with my family—nothing says "LOVE" like getting shot by your adult kid and them screaming "that's for grounding me when I was 14!". –Dale Meredith

Manage your commitments 

Exercise. I know it sounds corny but I feel my stress levels rising if I haven't taken the dog for a long walk in a few days. Longer term, be careful about managing your commitments both inside and outside of work. Even a weekend at home with no email and no social plans can help recharge my batteries. –Sonia Cuff

Make sure you get the chance to “switch off”

Separating work time from personal time. If you're taking a holiday, take a holiday. This common scenario where "your holidays are approved, but we'll need to be able to call you if something goes wrong" is just unreasonable. It's something worth fighting for, because the alternative is burnout when you never really get the chance to switch off. –Paul Cunningham

Do work you truly believe in

I felt burnt-out a couple of years ago. For me, it was the combination of doing frustrating work and being pushed to work very hard on that. Since then, I've changed things dramatically. I work for companies that I believe in, ones that have a mission worth putting my hours in for. Finding those companies (and managers) is hard, but in our industry, certainly not impossible, as we, the technologists, have all the power. And I've changed my work-life balance: I work to live and not the other way around. I exercise more, I meditate and I enjoy life. –Barry Luijbregts

Culled from Pluralsight