19 ways to feel MORE stressed at work

We all do things that make us more stressed.

 As it's stress awareness day, we thought we'd make a list of some of our favourite ways to feel MORE stressed at work. 

.How many of these do you do already? See which ones in these list feel familiar:

1. Get as many dirty mugs, flyers, sheets of paper and random objects as you can and place them in every inch of spare desk space you have.
2. Think of something that has gone badly recently and spend one hour thinking what your worst enemy would say about it.
3. Start one job, do it for 30 seconds, start another one, do it for five minutes whilst worrying about the first one, give up on that, start something else that you’ve realised you should do, twiddle your thumbs for ten minutes and return to the first job do it for 30 seconds.   Repeat until you feel sufficiently stressed.
4. Adjust your sugar and caffeine intake until you perfect feeling those sugar-lows and caffeine slumps exactly when you have important meetings or urgent deadlines.
5. Sign up to at least thirty new websites/blogs that you are vaguely interested who can make your inbox more interesting.
6. Wear an outfit that you don’t really like and every time you speak to someone, imagine how awful they think you look.
7. Think of someone you don’t like and put all your spare energy into thinking of everything you don’t like about them.
8. Tense your shoulders up really tightly around your neck and squeeze all your stress into them, hold this position as long as you can, preferably all day.  Go on, really squeeeeeze.
9. Imagine your boss really hates you and everything you ever do. Then go and speak to him or her about a payrise/holiday/new idea that you’re not sure about.
10. Open every social network, chat room, email account of which you’ve ever been a member and make sure you give each one at least a minute of attention whilst trying to do an urgent piece of work.
11. Spend a whole day looking at the floor and don’t make eye contact with anyone.
12. Start that new project you’ve been avoiding whilst repeating the thoughts “this is really rubbish, it will never work, I’m going to do a really bad job at this”.
13. Breathe as shallowly as possible.
14. Spend as much of your time at work as possible thinking of everything that needs doing at home.
15. Spend as much of your time at home as possible thinking about everything that needs doing at work.
16. Repeat after me ‘I am busy. I am stressed. I am busy. I am stressed. I am busy’.
17. Drop all your favourite hobbies, pastimes and friendships because you are so BUSY.
18. Stay up extra late watching something you’re half interested in on Netflix whilst simultaneously half shopping for presents for people that you don’t buy yet because they’re not on special offer. Continue shopping as you get into bed well after the time that makes you feel good when you wake up.
19. Avoid doing ANYTHING else that would help you feel satisfied, happy or relaxed.

 
At Office Om, we love helping people reduce their stress levels and increase their wellbeing. If you are concerned about your stress levels please make sure you get professional advice, for example through your GP.  Of course, we don't suggest you actually do all the things in this list (unless they make you smile and feel less stressed whilst you laugh at yourself a little).
 
We’ve also made a list of 140+ ways to help REDUCE your stress levels. Click here to download

At Office Om, we're on a mission to help millions of people have the awareness, tools and strategies to look after how they feel. Join us! Click here to join our mailing list or visit you.officeom.com.

And if you know an organisation that would love us to support their people in looking after their stress levels and increasing their wellbeing, just email info@officeom.com or visit business.officeom.com