Expert offers stress reduction techniques
Human beings do not come with batteries included. "When we were children and received presents, sometimes when we opened them, we were disappointed to learn they needed batteries before they could work," says Bobby Staten, BSN, MPH, CSP, who employs what she calls motivational humor to help employees learn how to deal with stress. "It’s the same with us; you have to bring your own batteries and create excitement and happiness on the job. You can’t plug into some energy source, but rather you must provide your own."
Being able to recharge your batteries, she asserts, is the key to being happy in life or on the job. "Think of a charcoal grill," she suggests. "After you first light it, before long you need more fuel. We need to keep fueling life and work with new ideas, new learnings, and meeting new people."
Take five
Over the years, Staten has honed the recharging process into five key principles:
• Take care of yourself: Get enough rest and exercise — this is the physical piece of the puzzle. "We have so much to do, we often save the energy needed for ourselves for last," notes Staten. "There are so many pressures at work, that if you’re not feeling good you can’t do the job well. Physical and mental well-being go hand in hand," she stresses. "If you’re not feeling good, you won’t be motivated to achieve goals."
To be happy on the job, you also need a sense of purpose, she adds. "You need a goal, to know what you want to do, and to have a plan. If you’re not moving toward something, you’re not growing and you’re not motivated."
• Decide what belongs in your circle: Everybody has stress, says Staten. The key is not to let too many things become overly important. You do this by deciding which few things are really important, and therefore belong in your circle. "The big things I decided to let in my circle were my health, my family, and my God," says Staten. "If something is outside your circle, you don’t let it get close to you or under your skin. If you’re stressed out, it’s because you are letting everything be a mountain, not a molehill."
Being human, Staten concedes that once in awhile "anything can get inside my circle — but I don’t let it stay in there. If I find myself getting mad, I ask myself if this issue is related to one of the three things in my circle. So, for example, if my car is stolen, but I don’t have any entry wounds or exit wounds, it’s not a life-or-death situation."
• Boost each other out of the bucket: If you’re in a bad mood, you’d just soon as everyone else was in a bad mood, too — that’s just human nature, says Staten. "There’s nothing more annoying about being in a bad mood than seeing other people in a good one," she says. However, this attitude can negatively impact the entire workplace. "If you see two crabs in a bucket, as one tries to claw its way out you’ll see the other grab it and pull it back in," Staten observes. "It’s the same with a crabby person; they keep pulling other people down — the whole department or even the whole office. You should decide instead that you want to boost people up, to help them out of the bucket." Recent economic woes and job insecurity tend to make us want to get out of the bucket by crawling over our co-workers, but you don’t have to do that, she says. "Instead, shine a laser pointer on them," Staten advises. "You can do it with a smile, by remembering their name, or by complimenting them; there are a thousand ways to do it."
• Learn to say "Just checking": Staten tells the story of how her husband, who is not normally the most communicative person, always asks for her schedule for the upcoming week every Sunday night. Then, when she finishes a speech, before she even gets to her hotel he calls her to say, Just checking.’ "That means, Did you give a good speech? Did you sell a lot of new business?’ He knows I can handle the rest," Staten relates. "At work, a lot of times you may like somebody or the job they are doing, but if you don’t do something about it, how will they know? You have to put your thoughts into action."
• Practice letting out little puffs of pain: "I believe laughter lets out little puffs of pain," Staten explains. "Remember the old saying, One day we’ll look back on this and laugh’? We often laugh to distance ourselves from the pain; that’s why we enjoy watching things like America’s Funniest Videos.’" Sometimes, we don’t use our senses of humor at work because we don’t want people to know what we are afraid of, Staten suggests.
"But when something bad happens, we need to laugh at our frailties," she insists. "It diffuses tension, and people enjoy being around others who have a sense of humor."
For more information, contact: Bobby Staten, BSN, MPH, CSP, 3224 Green Level Road West, Cary, NC 27519. Telephone: (919) 387-3838. E-mail: [email protected]. Internet: www.bobbiestaten.com.
Being able to recharge your batteries is the key to being happy in life or on the job, says Bobby Staten, BSN, MPH, CSP, who employs what she calls motivational humor to help employees learn how to deal with stress. Over the years, Staten has honed the recharging process into five key principles.
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