Five Fun Stress Relief Tools for the Workplace

All too often, we spend more time with our co-workers and clients than we do with our life partners and children. Is it any wonder that our workplaces can cause us stress?

Nothing will ever cure workplace stress entirely, but these five light-hearted stress relief tools may bring a smile to your face and a release to your tense muscles.

Stress Relief Tool #1 Own Your Space

As much as possible, personalize your work space. Display pictures of your loved ones. Tuck a few stress-relief toys like a squeeze balls into your desk drawers. Keep a candy dish, candle, or a bouquet of bright flowers on your desk. Post a cartoon or a picture that makes you smile on the wall of your cubicle.

If your company has rules against personalizing your space, at least place a couple of favorite pictures or cartoons in your purse or wallet. You can look at them and smile when the stress starts building.

Stress Relief Tool #2 The Unsent Letter

Is your co-worker more annoying than anything out of a Dilbert cartoon? Does your boss make Mr. Burns on The Simpsons look like a sweetheart? Write someone who annoys you an explicit letter and tell them exactly what you think of them. Read the letter through, laugh maniacally, then rip it into shreds (or run it through the shredder) and throw it away.

Note Do not use your work computer or company email to type this letter. Once typed, nothing ever really disappears from a corporate computer. This is an exercise for your eyes only.

Stress Relief Tool #3 Take Your Breaks

Most companies are required to provide their employees with one fifteen-minute break per four hour work period, and one half-hour lunch break for every eight hours worked. That means you’re due one lunch and two breaks a day. Take them. Use the time to take a walk outside, call your life partner, or scribble away on the Great American Novel. Anything, so long as it’s not work related.

Stress Relief Tool #4 Learn to Laugh at Yourself

It’s said that a person with a sense of humor will always be respected. That’s only partly true. A person with a mean sense of humor who makes fun of others will not be respected. He or she will just be disliked. It is the person who can gently poke fun at themselves and at the occasional ludicrous workplace situation who will be respected. Chances are, your job is not a matter of life or death, so don’t take yourself too seriously. (Even if your job is a matter of life or death, it’s okay to find the humor in it. ER nurses have some of the most highly-honed senses of humor in the world. Ask anyone.)

Stress Relief Tool #5 Take This Job and Shove It!

If workplace stress is becoming overwhelming, take a few minutes to consider your options. Slavery was outlawed over a hundred years ago, and the days when workers stayed with one company for life are over as well. Almost everyone job-hops now, and in many professions, several job changes on your resume won’t even raise an eyebrow. So, is it time for a job change or maybe even a career change?

The more trapped you feel in your current position, the higher your stress will be, so never be afraid to examine the idea of moving on. If you decide to stay where you are, at least you’ll know you’ve considered your options and made a choice.