What makes a person feel happy at work. Questions to ask yourself to relieve stress: What makes you feel happy?

Every person has moments when he is not happy with himself and the world around him. This condition can cause negative feelings towards others and oneself. Physical fatigue or ill health also affects psychological well-being. If you are not feeling the best, then change your lifestyle. Start taking care of your mental and emotional health so you can always feel good.

Steps

Physical health

Drink plenty of water. When there is a lack of moisture in the body, dehydration occurs, during which we feel tired and the body does not work properly. Drink water at the first sign of thirst, especially in hot weather and during exercise.

• Men should drink about 3.7 liters of water per day. Women on average need 2.7 liters of water per day. Each person has individual needs. It is better to drink enough water so as not to feel thirsty.

1. Exercise . Regular exercise is beneficial for all aspects of life, from learning to sleep. They also reduce the likelihood of depression. During physical activity, endorphins and serotonin are released, which improve mood, increase feelings of joy and increase self-esteem. Even minimal loads will be useful. Examples of different exercises:

   Eat a healthy and balanced diet . Feeling good isn't easy if you're not eating right. Plan three full meals a day and snacks when you feel hungry. Everyone has specific nutritional needs, but most people benefit from the following:

   • Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, lean protein (fish or chicken breast), complex carbohydrates (whole grains), healthy fats (from fish, nuts, avocado, olive oil) and dietary fiber.
   • Avoid refined sugar, processed foods, transitional fats, and sugary drinks.
   • Eat foods high in calcium and vitamin D.

2. Try to get 7-9 hours of sleep every night. Sleep is essential for restoring the brain and body from everyday stress. Aim to get the required amount of sleep each night and maintain good evening and sleep habits.

   • If you suffer from severe insomnia or feel tired after a full night's sleep, consult your doctor. He will offer you effective recommendations or prescribe medications to improve your sleep quality.

3. Contact your doctor if you often feel unwell. This condition can be caused by physical reasons. If you are constantly tired and unwell, a common cause is a lack of vitamin D or thyroid problems. Make an appointment with your therapist and describe how you feel.

   • Tell your medical history, describe your symptoms, and tell us about any medical or dietary supplements you are taking.

   Ways to deal with stress

   1. Sing . In the process of singing, especially in a group, endorphins and oxytocin are released, which give a feeling of pleasure and reduce stress and anxiety. Group singing strengthens the bond between people and helps relieve depression and feelings of loneliness.

      • Singing in a group is easy. Become a member of an ensemble or choir, go to karaoke with friends. You don't have to sing well. Some ensembles don't even hold auditions.
      • Singing alone is also beneficial. In the process of singing, breathing is regulated (as in yoga), which helps a person relax.

   2. Help others . Philanthropists give their time, energy and resources to help other people. Such care allows you to look at life from the outside and move towards your goal. Research shows that helping people reduces anxiety and stress, which means they can feel better and connect with others.

      • You can volunteer at a shelter or soup kitchen. Don't judge people who need this help. Everyone has their own story that is unknown to you.
      • All non-profit organizations rely on volunteers. Find an organization near you that you want to get involved with. This could be anything - from amateur theater for young spectators to helping older people.

   3. Find an activity that will help you take your mind off things. Use your imagination or an object that brings back pleasant memories. It is important to take breaks and distract yourself from the stress of everyday events.

      • Watch your favorite movie or read a book to immerse yourself in a familiar world.
      • Find a poem, song, or photo that reminds you of an important moment or person.
      • Don't spend a lot of time reminiscing about the past or the dream world. Don't lose touch with the present.

   4. Set achievable goals . No one is stopping you from dreaming about becoming president one day, but use more achievable goals that will give you a sense of satisfaction. These goals can be simple and short-term or more complex and long-term. For example:

      • Start learning to play a musical instrument. Make yourself happy by singing your favorite songs. During the learning process, do not place excessive demands on yourself.
      • Try cleaning your room. Cleaning will help you keep yourself busy with useful things. Listen to music and sing along. In addition to the feeling of satisfaction, you will get a clean bedroom.

   Mental health

   1. Assess signs of burnout. If you work hard or work under pressure for long periods of time, burnout can occur. Common symptoms include irritability, fatigue, depression and cynicism. If you think you are dealing with burnout, try to find time to relax and take care of yourself. Working through force will not only make the situation worse, but will also reduce your productivity.

      Replace negative thoughts with neutral and realistic ideas. We all have bad thoughts from time to time. Excessive negative thinking greatly affects psychological and physical health. When a person gets used to thinking in a negative way, it becomes difficult for him to change his thoughts to positive ones. Instead of trying to replace negative thoughts with positive ones, try thinking neutrally and objectively first.

   2. Get started live consciously . Being aware of your current feelings helps you feel calm, balanced, and in control of the situation. At times throughout the day, make a conscious effort to pause and take in the situation. Understanding your mental, emotional, and physical state will make it easier to recognize signs of stress and take care of yourself.

      • Mindfulness meditation is a great way to practice mindfulness in your daily life. Sit in a quiet, comfortable place, just breathe calmly for a few minutes and focus on your sensations.
      • Acknowledge thoughts and feelings without judgment. For example, close your eyes and think to yourself: “I’m a little tired and cold. Shoulders tense. Now I’m a little worried because I’m thinking about the unpaid utility bill again.”

   3. Learn meditate . Meditation allows you to relax your body and mind, as well as relieve stress, focus on the present and think less about the bad.

      • Basic way to meditate: Sit in a quiet place and close your eyes, relax (you may not even realize how tense you are!) and focus on your breathing. Breathe deeply using your diaphragm and count your inhalations and exhalations.
      • Don't worry if random thoughts come into your head. Thank them for their visit and just let them go.
      • You can meditate anywhere: on the bus, at work during your lunch break, or right before a difficult exam.
      • Religious people can replace meditation with prayer. Take time to pray for another person - a relative, a stranger, or even the whole world.

   4. Learn gratitude . Nothing should be taken for granted. Appreciate the kindness of other people. Research shows that having a grateful attitude towards life promotes happiness and well-being, which gives you a sense of well-being, and also helps reduce negative emotions.

      • Keep a gratitude journal. Write down examples of kindness and list everything you are grateful for, be it an event, person or thing.
      • Express gratitude in conversation. Discuss such aspects with loved ones - your significant other, relative or friend. This will help you better notice all the good things that happen to you, and also not think about the bad.
      • Pay attention to the little things. Be grateful for a warm bed, kind words and your favorite foods.

   5. Don't run away from problems. Problems and experiences tend to accumulate and manifest themselves at the most inconvenient moments. Solve them as they come and do not leave them for the future in order to control your own well-being.

      • Solving problems is not easy. Situations can range from paying rent to disputes and conflicts with friends.
      • Focus on the solution, not the problem itself. For example, in case of disagreements with your boss, do not worry about the problem, but simply talk to him and give specific examples of situations. Suggest a solution.
   • Remember that there is nothing abnormal in a bad mood or mood. It is impossible to experience joy and happiness all the time. You should not blame yourself for your bad mood, so as not to aggravate the situation.
   • A voice or video call to a friend will help you get distracted or discuss an issue that is bothering you. Considering the problem together will help you find the right solution.
   • Never consider yourself a weak person. Life is a complicated thing. You are certainly doing your best! Keep it up!

   Warnings

   • These tips are not a panacea for medical diagnoses like depression or anxiety. Such actions will not cause harm, but they will not replace professional help.

Manipulation using feelings of guilt is the most elementary and common method of everyday manipulation. Remember how many times a month you act out an insult in front of your partner or friend so that he, feeling guilty, will fulfill your desires. This is the most typical example, but it is far from the only one.

1. “And other mothers will come!”

- the child says in response to your refusal to come to a school holiday, a football match, a music studio’s reporting concert, etc. You're stuck at work, have an annual report, and ten other good reasons. However, you still feel guilty.

“It's a question of social pressure,” says Marie-Eve Landry. – Some mothers actively participate in the child’s life. As a result, your son or daughter is afraid of not being like everyone else. And you, naturally, are worried too.”

How to behave? Decide if you are willing to sacrifice work, a business meeting, or other plans for the sake of your child this time. If you can't, promise to come next time. And then definitely fulfill your obligations. And this time a grandmother or aunt can go to school so that the child does not feel deprived of attention.

2. “And this is after what I did for you!”

- your father, mother or other elderly relative complains in response to a refusal to fulfill his request. In this situation, it is logical to feel guilty, because your parents really put a lot of effort into your upbringing. And now you invest in your children. But it's your choice. Just like at one time, sacrificing something for you was the choice of your parents.

How to behave? Try to tell your parents how much you appreciate them more often. And pamper whenever possible, without waiting for persistent requests. Then you will be able to refuse in a certain situation without feeling guilty.

3. “I should have thought of that!”

- you are tormented, stuck in a traffic jam and hopelessly late for an important meeting. “If you often repeat this phrase, it means you are used to blaming yourself for everything. Although sometimes we are simply powerless in the face of circumstances,” explains the psychologist. This behavior is counterproductive.

How to behave? Think about it, could you have foreseen this traffic jam? And will it help that you lament this? Isn't it more important to try to find a way out of the situation? For example, leave your car in the nearest parking lot and try to get to the desired location by metro. Instead of blaming yourself for everything, it’s better to praise yourself later for being able to find the right solution.

4. “I need you to help me!”

- says a colleague when you are about to leave the office. “The word 'need' makes you feel obligated to do a duty. Since childhood, we have been taught to help friends in difficult situations. They were taught that a good person would always come to the rescue,” explains the expert.

How to behave? Is your help really important in this situation? Why does a colleague ask you? Can he handle it on his own? And if he fails, how serious will the consequences be? The right decision in this situation is influenced by many factors. But most importantly, do not confuse friendships and relationships between colleagues.

5. “We all know how busy you are.”

- a friend remarks ironically when you cancel a long-planned meeting. Sometimes hints, omissions, special intonation and a meaningful look hurt more than directly stated claims. And then you yourself speculate on the degree of your friend’s offense and its reasons.

How to behave? Talk frankly. Tell me why you can't come. Perhaps he is not offended at all. Just don't start with apologies and don't try to make excuses. This will only show weakness. If this is not the first time that a meeting has been disrupted due to your busyness or forgetfulness, think about how to please your friend. For example, give him a nice surprise, send him a sweet card or a song you loved in 11th grade.

6. “You’ve relaxed a little.”

- this is how your spouse delicately hints that you have gained a couple of extra pounds. You yourself know that you are out of shape now, but this is your body. Why do you feel guilty? “In this case, it is born out of a conflict between the body you have and the ideal figure you have always dreamed of,” says Marie-Eve Landry. – Who among us would not like to be slim? But for this you need to diet and go to the gym. We don’t do this and therefore are ashamed of our laziness.”

Not always what we really like is what we are good at. But this does not mean that your dream is over!

Photo: Alterna2/Flickr

Doing what you love is everyone's dream. But there is one problem: what we really like is not always what we are good at. But this does not mean that your dream is over! You just need to figure out how to get closer to its implementation using the skills that you already have. Of course, the dream can be corrected. Four questions that will help with all this were brought up by Whitney Johnson, author of the book Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work and columnist for The Daily Muse project.

1. What skills have helped you succeed at something?

During your childhood and student years, you probably developed some skills. Successful consultant Scott Edinger grew up in a poor family, and at the age of nine he was adopted by another family under not the most pleasant circumstances. Edinger learned to survive by becoming an expert in communication, conflict resolution, understanding and persuasion.

At university, he polished his communication skills, placing in the top five in the 100 varsity debates and earning a degree in communications and rhetoric. After a while, he became the number two salesman at one of the largest American companies, and then helped organizations reform underperforming departments and focus on the key skill for business survival - how to sell products.

Not everyone was as unlucky in their childhood as Edinger. But all the same, you also encountered some obstacles in life - and came up with a way to get around them. Think about situations that have challenged you: do they have anything in common? If yes, then it's something you're good at. So think about what area or position this skill would be useful for.

2. What makes you feel stronger?

Marcus Buckingham, author of Achieve Your Maximum, explains: “Our strengths attract attention in the most basic way: when you use them, you feel stronger. Notice the moments when you feel refreshed, curious, and successful. This is a clue as to what exactly your strengths are.”

Also think about what activities you take on when you feel overwhelmed. In such cases, we want to feel in control. And to do this you need to do what makes you feel stronger. If you decide on these activities and skills, you will also increase your level of happiness, which helps you better solve a wide variety of problems.

3. What made you special as a child?

As children, we only do what we like, even if we look weird doing it. Looking back on these activities now, you may well discover some innate talent. Candace Brown Elliott's classmates teased her as "Encyclopedia Brown" (that was the character's nickname in one book). She recalls: "All the kids thought I was the smartest one in school, but most of the teachers were disappointed because I mostly got C's. They thought I was lagging behind." Meanwhile, she dreamed of lively conversations with celebrities like Marie Curie, about developing a real artificial intelligence that would sit in her closet. She dreamed of floating cities, great inventions and new forms of art.

Forty years have passed, and Elliott has 90 patents. Its most famous invention, PenTile, a color LCD screen architecture, powers hundreds of millions of smartphones, tablets, laptops and TVs. She founded her own company to develop this technology and later sold it to Samsung. All of Elliot's childhood dreams were considered strange by her classmates, and the teachers were simply annoyed by them. But as an adult, this tendency to daydream became her superpower.

Did you have anything special as a child? Could this be your superpower?

4. What compliments do you ignore?

Too often we don't notice our strengths. When you do something well on a reflective level, it doesn't stand out. Therefore, listen carefully to compliments that you usually brush aside or ignore because this skill seems banal and natural to you. Perhaps you hear some compliments so often that you are already sick of them! Why can't people praise you for something you worked really, really hard on and tried so hard to do well?

This tendency to brush off compliments is understandable, but the result is that you end up selling your real value at a steep discount. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: “In every work of genius we find our own rejected thoughts; they return to us with a certain aloof grandeur.” Don't think that just because something comes easy to you or seems obvious, that it can't be a rare and valuable skill for other people.

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Stress is very serious. According to various estimates, up to half of all people suffer from it. Despite the fact that there are techniques (meditation, yoga, journaling) to cope with it, it does not take root on a large scale due to the fact that it takes time and requires a lot of effort.

The main thing is not stress, but the reaction to it. Every person is susceptible to it, so it is a completely normal process. Until the moment when it becomes chronic and uncontrollable.

Another problem is that people look for too simple approaches: “I’m stressed because of work, that’s all” or “I worry too much, that’s why I feel this way.” However, these are not causes, but symptoms. Not everyone worries about work, just as not everyone dies of heart attacks.

You can by asking questions and finding answers to them. This reflective method is considered effective. All questions are essentially aimed at finding stress factors and getting rid of them.

Are there any external stressors?

Look at your surroundings:

• The apartment you live in
• On the people you communicate with
• Situations you find yourself in
• For things, food, sports

It is also important to understand at what point in your life you began to experience severe stress. There must be a clear reason.

Are these external factors related to your relationships with other people?

What area of ​​your life are these people from: professional, personal, or are they completely strangers to you? Either way, try calling them by name.

Does stress mainly come from within or without?

• Is this pressure from within?
• Unrealistic demands on yourself in your thoughts?
• Conflicts in real life?
• and contradictions?

Give names to all sources of stress.

When you look at your to-do list or schedule, what causes irritation?

Stress often arises due to time pressure. When you realize that there is too much work and that you will not be able to deliver it on time, a huge wave of tension rises inside. Or you are unhappy that your to-do list usually contains 20-30 items. In this case, look critically at your life and make a decision: the three most important things to do in a day, and the rest - if possible.

Do you feel responsible for things that are beyond your control?

Create a list of things that are out of your control and that cause you stress. What three things are the most stressful?

You should understand that stress is a product of thoughts. And if you can calm your thoughts, then anxiety will disappear. Read Carnegie's book, where you will find dozens of excellent tips.

What exactly makes you feel better, happier, more energetic?

Create the list again. You can put whatever you want in it:

• Favorite music
• Watching cartoons
• Walks in the park
• Lie in bed and watch comedies

You really need this list. Try to use points from it more often.

What drains your energy?

Let's say it's three o'clock in the afternoon, and you already feel like a lemon. How could this happen? Take a notepad and write down everything you saw, felt and said. Don't miss anything. Most likely these are your own actions or thoughts. Or a complex of small stimuli that together gave such a result.

What makes you feel stressed on an intuitive level?

For some people, anxiety becomes chronic, which is a sign that you need to seek professional help. If you don't want to do this, at least analyze your situation. Is this some kind of negative feeling that is in the air? Can you control it? Can you quiet this voice?

Do you feel like life is controlling you?

When a person feels that he is not in control of his life, he falls into depression. So you need to take back control. You won’t believe it, but most often it is enough to carry out the usual completed actions: wash the dishes, chop wood, clean the apartment, throw away old things.

We wish you good luck!

How can an employee create a good mood at work? Don't advise others to be so positive.

The idea of ​​creating a positive work environment seems like a very noble endeavor on the part of both employers and employees of the company. At the very least, it is difficult to imagine that anyone would want to work in an atmosphere that is negative or even slightly tired. Meanwhile, the National Labor Relations Board ruled against T-Mobile in late April for doing just that, finding that the telecommunications company had violated the law by including in its job description a clause requiring employees to “promote a positive work environment in a manner that this promoted efficient industrial relations.”

Of course, this was an excellent seemingly legitimate reason for such a seemingly strange reaction. The decision was the culmination of a series of allegations against the company over several years, during which the National Council overturned many of T-Mobile's rules that did not suit the union and also made it difficult to implement other, more lenient measures to discuss behavior in the workplace. The Board found the job description's “positive work environment” language to be “ambiguous and vague,” which it believed was sufficient to limit employees' rights to freedom of speech and assembly—rights guaranteed by the Labor Relations Act. Because the concept of a “positive work environment” has never been precisely defined, workers may have mistakenly taken it for the impossibility of intense expression of feelings, understanding it as a “potentially controversial but protected form of communication in the workplace,” as outlined in the decision of the National Council - so that such way to avoid punishment.

The law is the law, but if you took upon yourself such powers to create a work environment and tried to somehow intellectually comprehend it - even with the help of sociology - could you expect any different result? If we agree that a benevolent atmosphere is a goal worthy in all respects, we will also have to agree with exactly the same methods for achieving it. Practice clearly shows us that people succeed precisely in a benevolent and harmonious environment: they feel happy and satisfied; they are motivated, optimistic, set themselves more complex tasks and work much more energetically; they are creatively productive; they burn out less and are much more inclined to focus on the overall cause of the company or project. But can you actually ensure a good mood with instructions?

"It sounds tempting. It's like you're really creating a civilized workplace,” said Alicia Grandy, a psychologist at Pennsylvania State University who studies the interface between emotion and work, when I asked about guidelines for creating an environment like T-Mobile's. But Grendy believes that it is incredibly difficult to create a positive attitude by the highest decree and get a truly positive result. “When something feels forced or driven from the outside, it won't work out as well as when it comes from the inside,” she said. – The paradox is that when you try to get people to do something good, you fail. Once you demand it, it becomes a lie and coercion.” Instead, you only turn everyone against you. “They just start to see you as Big Brother.”

Worrying about whether or not you are violating the rules of good manners and constantly analyzing yourself for mistakes will not lead your mind to anything good. More than 20 years of research show that suppressing thoughts, or trying to suppress your original urges for one reason or another, can only lead to mental fatigue, affecting other areas of your thinking - memory, self-control, problem-solving ability, motivation and perception. When we begin to persistently observe ourselves, our mental energy ceases to be enough for other things. The result is not only a less-than-positive work environment, but also employees whose productivity, frankly, leaves much to be desired. In other words, it becomes a bad business.

Such behavioral restrictions are quite capable of complicating thinking and depriving us of initiative and any movement. In 2004, psychologists Meong-Goo Seo, Lisa Feldman Barrett and Jean Bartunek proposed a link between employees' emotional experiences in the workplace and their ultimate motivation levels. According to their model, our feelings influence behavior through a choice between what they called “performance” (i.e., how often you are able to see a good outcome when achieving it involves risk), and, on the other hand, with “defensiveness” (when you are so focused on the fear of the negative consequences of an action that you preemptively give up any benefits you might gain from the process). Their concept is close to what Columbia University psychologist Tory Higgins calls promotion and prevention—namely, the desire to work for something versus channeling energy toward fear of something else. When we constantly think about our behavior, we tend to be on guard and defensive. That is, we rather strive to prevent than to advance.

At the same time, Alicia Grandy argues that even more significant is the feeling of lack of self-identification, which provokes the emergence of emotional manifestations. In her own research, she found that putting on an emotional mask at work—reducing you to a certain image that doesn't necessarily say anything about how you feel or who you really are—robs you of the energy that can fill you up again. only if you have the opportunity to be yourself. “You must be able to exist in reality,” she convinced me. – If we expect people to be very happy and positive towards people you would expect to be very positive in return as part of your job” – i.e. smiling and being nice to clients and customers – “if you can’t to come from the other side and become a real person in communication with your colleagues means that you only increase the emotional burden and get a real problem in your own head.”

Everyone wants a civilized workplace, but asking your employees to be friendly can turn the situation into the exact opposite. And this is especially likely when such a demand is expressed in such a frank and unequivocal manner, as it was with T-Mobile. Last year, a group of scientists decided to test whether any rules focused on managing feelings worked in what could be called a truly successful workplace. To answer this question, they recruited 382 workers from a variety of supermarkets to assess how clear the rules governing their emotional behavior at work were: on the one hand, vague and ambiguous ideas like “be positive” without any nuance; at the other extreme, there were clear rules specifying when they should smile, what to say, etc. After this, the scientists found out how motivated these workers were and how customers reacted to them.

As a result, they found a U-shaped relationship between rule clarity and effectiveness: Rules had an equally demotivating effect when they were too vague as when they were too literal. (Buyers were also disappointed by both of these categories of workers, whose experience they tended to rate the least.) Conversely, the rules showed the best effect in their moderate part, that is, when they had some certainty, but at the same time implied freedom in their performance. A second study of 175 salespeople found a similar relationship with the number of sales: sales were higher with moderate rules, while sales fell with rules that were either too vague or too detailed. But the highest level of effectiveness was demonstrated by those subjects who had moderate rules combined with a high degree of independence, and their reaction was reduced to one statement: “My job allows me to independently choose how I will carry out my duties.” In other words, people want to control their feelings. They prefer to be treated with respect and given the opportunity to determine how to act; and it is precisely this independence that contributes to the emergence of emotional positivity. Alicia Grandy suggests that we are all still little children in some ways: tell a girl exactly what to do and what not to do, and she will never agree to it. But let her come up with it herself, limiting it to certain limits, and she will be happy.

So, it turns out that forcing everyone to be positive only creates problems – both in the sphere of psychological motivation and in the realm of the law. The question of how to promote positivity in the workplace raises another issue: the ability to curb freedom of expression. When you think of a "benevolent" atmosphere, you run the risk of putting your own ideas into it and putting anyone in their place who doesn't fit your immediate idea of ​​positivity. In T-Mobile's case, enforcing a supportive environment could be a way to discourage very specific types of words and actions, namely anything critical of the employer or trying to defend the rights of the employee. Similar dynamics are observed outside of production. In recent years we can see just such a tendency to prescribe what can be said or not, in order to assert a subjective idea of ​​how it might affect the feelings of another. This happens especially often in universities in the form of microaggressions, disruption, etc. In some cases, the purpose of controlling speech may be a rational desire to protect members of the community, but otherwise the fear of committing an offense can cause anxiety and even become a form of censorship. The case of T-Mobile's welcoming environment is essentially just a grown-up version of a “safe place”—safe only for those who created it, not for people with different views.

Well, now the rule itself gives us cause for genuine positivity - after the National Labor Relations Board ruled against T-Mobile. And only one thing can reassure us here - positively and quite optimistically reassure us: that this decision portends a broader understanding of the hidden truth in the depths - we are all worthy of a benevolent atmosphere, but that any, even the most obvious benevolence will be threatened while we try to instill it - instead of growing, for example.