Ivy Hartman: Owning a small business can be stressful but you can put data based stress to work for you and your enterprise. Joining us today on sbtv.com to talk about managing stress and your business is a small business owner, wellness consultant, license therapist and Patricia E. Adams. Welcome Patricia, what are some of the top reasons for stress in the work place.
Patricia E. Adams: Goes back to the seven things that we talked about in other segments. The perception that they don’t have resources to do the days of work, time management, inability to have effective communication, simple things that create stress at work, arriving late, having an emergency to come after at the middle of the day those can be stressful as well. And of course, also the family dynamics that present at home can also impact the work environment.
Ivy Hartman: How do you avoid stress on the job?
Patricia E. Adams: I don’t think there is such a thing that avoiding stress really. Stress can be a very positive motivator, it gets you energized, it helps you to streamline your process at work, and it helps you stay focused on your things to do list. It helps you to weed out the things that need your attention right away versus those things that could wait until later on during the day “Get those termite down right there” because often times I get the impression that I've given them the impression that everything that I asked them to do I need right now.
But there is such a thing as managing your priorities during the day but I like the ability to complete what I started at the day and I want to start the day knowing that I'm on a path to complete something and then at the end of the day show that I've done that. So managing stress is probably a concept as a better reframe than saying, I'm never going to be stressed.
Ivy Hartman: And I'm trying to even eliminate it.
Patricia E. Adams: Exactly.
Ivy Hartman: You mentioned that it could be a positive factor, what's point of stress become unhealthy?
Patricia E. Adams: It becomes unhealthy when your body physically is not responding well to the demands that are put on it at work. You're getting migraine, headaches, you’re having neck problems, you’re having lower back problems, you’re starting to have knees problem, your starting to have gastro intestinal problems. And so you need at that point in time to step back and asked yourself “What is the big picture here, what's going on, and what can I adjust to eliminate or decrease, use stress in a different way so that my body physically and logically is not responding to that”.
Ivy Hartman: Okay, what are some of those tips on who we can help manage our stress and reduce it.
Patricia E. Adams: Well in our office then you know were a bit wellness consulting for ermines, the small business is one thing, is we say pull those small massage therapy place inside your sweet. So that when people do have headaches, there is a dark quite room where they can go sit down with some relaxing music on, bringing in a massage therapist ones a month or every other month. Something to acknowledge to your team members that we know that there is a lot going on here and here is the way that we can manage it. It does a lot for our employees when we take that 15-20-30 minute opportunity to provide them with onsite chair massages.
Ivy Hartman: It seems like and extravagant but I can tell you that you use the word, in a former and in the previous interview working smarter and I think that would help an employee to work smarter if they felt like they are being more efficient and their body was.
Patricia E. Adams: Exactly, were behind computer screens a lot, we sit down a lot and other thing that we do is we bring someone introduce stretching exercise and breathing exercises. If you look at the ancient Chinese cultures, the Asian yoga, deep breathing, and relaxation are very important processes to them daily. And so we can also incorporate it that entire work place that 15 minute break there supposed to do a lot. And maybe we can turn it into a 30 minute breaks, 15 minutes to go down the stairs come back up and then do that deep breathing, that relaxation and get that 15 minute massage.
Ivy Hartman: What are your top five recommendations for coping the stress in the work place?
Patricia E. Adams: Identify the source of the stress it is profession, is it personal stress, is it a combination, go back and look at what you're responding to and then make the determination. What can you do about that to change that particular stress? The second thing is in any environment you need to pick your battles, calling pal calls and creating a noise assistant. He likes to make sure that the system at that time if full of conflict.
So that you have an opportunity to look at all parameters and what's happening, be able to have a vision for your enemy as it calls and wasn’t call at that at work but have a vision for what's going on with your employees. And then work it all the way through, picking you data so that ultimately when you make a decision then it’s the right decision.
Good, better and different we have to stick with the consequences, accept the consequences and what that also on the decision, what that also a decision is from that stress or. The third thing is to get organized, I mean I love things to do list you know some people like a little yellow stickiest some people like to send them selves emails. So if they're thinking about something in the middle of the night or want to accomplish that tomorrow that’s also a good thing but just get organized. Know what your goals are at the beginning of the day, at the middle of the day and at the end of the day and then go home and then come back rejuvenated and refresh for the day tomorrow.
The fourth thing goes to accept stress as a part of life, it is what it is, we would not be able to function if everything was, and that wouldn’t be any fun. So accepted it as what it is, embraced it, run into it sometime and just kind of like say “Here I am” you know stress know accept me for who I am too. Or often times were scared of it, were running away from, we don’t know what to do with it and then it will collapse us and at that point, in time the last thing is when it gets to the part where it’s so overwhelming and then you don’t know what to do.
And you haven’t called your mentor, you haven’t called your coach seek professional help. We don’t want to have employees or employers or leaders of the company to operate in out of a sense of stress or depression or anxiety or sadness we want them operating from a place of strength. Not the place of weakest and I think that’s the model that we embraces, I can't say more anything else and I hope your listeners have felt that, listening to you and I today as we've been here on sbtv.com.
Ivy Hartman: Thank you very much Patricia.
Patricia E. Adams: You're welcome.
Ivy Hartman: Setting a good example has got to be a good way of communicating and effectively proclaim that role for your employees, Patricia’s book the ABC’s of Change and her firm site guys wellness group provides services of residence of 18 states. You can look for other wellness segments from Patricia E. Adams right here on sbtv.com where small business is the only business.
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