Are You Experiencing Stress? Then It Might Be Time To Change Your Light Bulb!

If you’re experiencing shift work stress then you’re not alone. Just getting up at 2am is putting unwanted stress on your body because quite frankly – we’re not nocturnal animals that come to life and thrive in the dark!

.
So what is stress?

Stress comes in various forms but essentially when we feel stressed we feel totally overwhelmed – as if we have little control over what is happening or what is about to happen to us. Stress makes us focus on bad outcomes and arouses a sense of fear inside us.

If we’re at work and we’re under severe stress, we can sometimes feel like we’re locked into an unbearable situation.

As shift workers we’re more than likely to already be feeling fatigued and exhausted so when you add stress into the equation – it can certainly become a dangerous combination.

But the good news is that this feeling of helplessness is actually a learned behaviour which means that we can quite simply retrain ourselves to ‘unlearn’ this behaviour.

You see, the key to eliminating stress in your life is to acquire the same skills used by people who do not become stressed even though they may be facing some very trying and extremely difficult situations.

Now I’m sure you know people like this. They just appear unflappable – as if nothing fazes them. (Hmm … I wonder what drugs they’re on? … I’m only kidding!)

You see all that they are doing differently is changing the way that they think. They are simply just changing the light bulb that is going off in their head.

This is really important because essentially it is your thinking that is causing you to become stressed.

Now when you’re at work and you become highly stressed, your thinking becomes irrational. You assign bad outcomes to events and arouse a fear response within you. You also become highly emotional, your sleeping patterns are disturbed and you can feel totally exhausted.

So to beat stress you simply need to retrain your thinking and get rid of all of those negative thoughts. Learn how to think more calming and positive thoughts instead of brooding on negative outcomes, and when you do – you will be well on your way to banishing your stress forever!

P.S – So, do you have a ‘Mr or Mrs Calm’ that works in your workplace? You might want to hang around them a little bit … you never know, some of their calming aura might just rub off onto you!