Five Tips For Managing Work-Related Stress In Nigeria

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Rita1234
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October 16th, 2018, 3:17 pm

You are stressed! I am sure you will be totally perplexed if I tell you this to your face because you would probably wonder what could prompt me to make such a conclusive statement. The truth is working in Nigeria is associated with stress. According to a study carried out by Bloomberg, the result revealed life as toughest in Nigeria.
work-stress.jpg
A report from the News Agency of Nigeria stated that about 7 million Nigerians suffer stress and depression. You may wonder how true this is, then let’s figure it out! Our buses hurry out of their shades in early hours to meet the myriads of people who lazy out of their beds because of the persistence of their dreaded alarms. We wake long before the rooster crows and sleep just before we pass out. How possibly can anyone doubt this? The rate of job pay in comparison to the job done is low. Only a few Nigerians even know their worth based on the work they do.

‘All work without play makes Jack a dull boy’ hardly works in Nigeria because we work so hard and still remain so smart. So smart that we think we can outsmart stress by getting the best jobs. However, stress is not a norm: it leads to depression and reduces the life expectancy ratio. I am sure that by now you won’t blame me for the first sentence I made. Don’t get me wrong, you are not supposed to panic if you are stressed and that is because we’ve got you covered. In this article, we will discuss 5 simple tips on how to manage work stress and still remain very productive in Nigeria.
What is Work Stress All about?

Many Nigerians often confuse stress with a challenge, but they are two different things. A challenge occurs when you are faced with a problem that when solved will ultimately increase your knowledge capacity and problem-solving skills.

On the other hand, work stress is the stress that is often generated from work. Many times work stress is generated from unexpected pressures and responsibilities that are not in correspondence with the person’s knowledge, skills, or expectations that reduces one’s ability to cope. Work stress can lead to deteriorated health and decreased productivity.

5 Tips to Managing Job Stress in Nigeria;

1. Schedule Your Day for Energy and Productivity
One of the most effective ways you can manage stress is to schedule your day and not merely jumping and shuffling tasks as they come. Properly planning your day to include launch times and time for work is a good way to reduce stress to the barest minimum. Most people think that working all through from 9 – 5 is the way to go about planning your day. It would surprise you to know that the more hours you spend working the less productive you would become and the more stressed you would be.

Taking out time to go for lunch or even taking a walk around will help you regain lost energy and increase productivity. When you plan your schedules at the beginning of the day that is when you can actually fix the time for lunch and relaxation. Failure to properly plan your activities for the day will leave you chocked with tons of task that you will hardly have any time for relaxation at all.

2. Eliminate Interruptions
Many Nigerians are faced with the self-imposed stress that comes as a result of a very high level of interruption. A large number of workers in Nigeria are really distracted by themselves or entertain distractions or interruption from other people. The more you engage in irrelevant activities that would distract you or entertain any form of distraction from other people the more you pill your task and other relevant things you have to do.

To reduce and manage work stress, learn to focus on your task for the day and other activities that will help you relax and regain the energy that you must have a loss in the course of your work. Many workers in Nigeria spend their time chatting or doing things that are exhausting and at the end will find it difficult to complete their task for the day. Pushing all your task to the end of the day before completing them can put you under unnecessary stress that you would have avoided at the beginning of the day.

The less interrupted you are, the more relaxed and productive you would be.

3. Learn to Delegate Duties and Seek Help
Managers and supervisors find it really difficult to trust their subordinate enough to delegate responsibilities to them. A good number of managers would rather burden themselves with all the task when they can delegate these responsibilities to someone else. Not assigning responsibilities will leave you with a heavy task weight that will result to stress in the long run.

You achieve greater results when you assign duties to other people because you would be left with more energy to supervise and manage them, and their collective effort will definitely increase productivity.

As our definition states; work stress comes as a result of pressure that people face in their jobs. To reduce the rate of unexpected responsibilities and pressure that may come from the job, it is important for you to reach out to others when you are faced with any form of difficulty in your work before it generates to stress.

A good way to reduce stress at work is by delegating duties, and also seeking help when needed in order to avoid frustration and depression.

4. Avoid Unnecessary Reactions and Concentrate on Positive Actions
It is quite easy for us to react to situations that pose any form of challenge to us at all. The funny thing is that when we react to these kinds of situations it will pose some form of stress on you. Our reactions to a particular situation can affect and blow up the whole situation beyond the limit.

Often times, when people are faced with different forms of challenges or situations at work they simply feel that the situation is out of control, and the moment you start feeling that way, that is when your reaction will begin to stress you beyond the situation. The best approach to take when dealing with your actions in a particularly challenging situation is watching out for your response to the situation. You can avoid reacting negatively in a challenging situation with these tips;

Identify that a challenge is a challenge when faced with one; this will help you accept the reality and look for ways to tackle the challenge
Point out aspects of the challenge that you fix; this gives you a sense of confidence that everything is in control and that you can fix it.
Identify aspects of the situation that you cannot fix; sometimes this is one of the most challenging parts, but identifying them can sometimes even help you realize that the problem is not huge as it seemed. You can also seek help from your colleagues that you know can help you with solving the problem.

5. Prioritize your task
As important as planning your schedule is, it is also very important for you to prioritize your task for the day because it keeps you organized. For many people that work under the supervision of a manager or a supervisor, it is advisable for you to prioritize your task in order of importance.

When you arrange and organize your task for the day in order of importance from the greatest to the smallest it will help you avoid the anxiety that can lead to stress at the end of the day. Once you start performing your task for the day starting from the least important to the most important, you will end up putting yourself under the pressure to finish your task for the day because you would have to send your report to your superior.

Always prioritize your task in descending order to avoid becoming stressed at work.

Note
If you are already so stressed out at work and look forward to seeing how you can stop being stressed rather than avoiding it, then I am sure these steps would help stop the stress;
a. Take a deep breath and slow down with whatever you are doing
b. Stop worrying about things that you can’t do or things you are trying to do. Calm down and concentrate on how to figure it out.
c. Tell yourself that nothing is worth being stressed about, this will help you stay calm while looking for the solution.
d. If you have become really stressed, you can take a time off to do a meditation or an exercise. This will distract you from the present worry, give you time to relax, and help you address the stress with a better approach.
e. Taking out time to pray about the situation stressing you out could be relieving, helpful, and reassuring as well.
Conclusion
The truth about working in Nigeria is that it is packed with stress, and being a developing country it is quite difficult for you to totally eliminate factors like traffic, health care availability amongst other factors that can result in stress. So the best approach to dealing with stress in Nigeria is to look out for means to manage and reduce it.

If you have tried all the suggestions above and still feel stressed at work, they may be it is time for you to think of a career change or better still look for jobs in your most preferred location to avoid being stressed.

For more amazing career tips visit https://www.myjobmag.com/blog/620/five- ... in-nigeria

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eMade
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October 16th, 2018, 6:16 pm

:clap: Very useful to me. Me .
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Hotsaint
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October 16th, 2018, 6:38 pm

very helpful to me sha
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Gloria50
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June 12th, 2021, 6:20 pm

Interesting
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Bash888
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July 24th, 2021, 9:53 pm

Thanks for the update
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