Stress is universal in the present world. That is why stress awareness and stress management have become important skills to improve one’s mental health and overall life. 

When it comes to the workplace, stress can negatively affect productivity and happiness. However, it is easier to tackle such issues if you learn to identify when you or your coworkers are becoming stressed and what measures can be taken to combat it.

We at Chart Learning Solutions are experts on this. In fact, our CEO, Peter Horwing, recently went on the Go1 podcast to answer exactly these questions. 

What Is Stress? What Is The Importance Of Managing It?

According to Peter, stress is every human’s response to change, and it isn’t necessarily negative. Whether it is negative or positive is determined by a person’s response to a situation. 

A positive stress situation would be one in which you face a situation head-on and you feel good, but are also a little wary. A negative stress situation, on the other hand, is called distress. And too much distress can cause physical health issues. In fact, according to some research, around 70-80% of health issues in the world today are stress related. That’s why it has become so important to learn to manage it. 

How Do You Identify Stress? 

Identifying stress is relatively easy if you learn to look at yourself and others closely. According to Peter, there are three types of stress – mental, chemical, and structural. Mental stress is mostly emotional, while chemical stress is physical and usually caused by toxins within the body. Structural stress, meanwhile, is related more to the body’s energy flow. These three may often blend together because mental stress often causes toxins to be produced in the body, which in turn affect your energy. 

At Chart, we teach you how to identify and combat all of these types of stresses, along with teaching you resilience. 

Resilience is the ability to deal with change and use it to adapt and grow. Additionally, we also cover work-life balance and burnout. Our learners learn to assess where they stand with stress and the steps they can take to improve their situation. 

Stress And Time Management

One important skill that helps with reducing stress is time management. Learning to prioritize your tasks and set specific times for each can change your life if you apply it to all aspects of your life instead of just work. Peter offers the example of a learner who did just that and it drastically improved the quality of her life. 

What Can Leaders Do To Help Reduce Stress?

According to Peter, the first thing that all leaders need to understand and accept is that every person is unique. This means that there may be highly-organized people, or long-term builders, or social butterflies, etc., your team. The idea is to identify the type of person and manage them accordingly. For example, a long-term builder would be looking more at the larger picture and may not appreciate being micro-managed. 

Additionally, as a leader, you need to learn to listen to your employees, which will help you identify when they are stressed. Then, be brave enough to have that conversation with them even if the stress isn’t related to the workplace. Being supportive when they are stressed about something will go a long way in employee satisfaction and retention. 

Another way to help reduce stress as a leader is to be humble and ask your people how you can help them. This takes a lot of pressure off of yourself as well, because it shows your people that you are only human and you can make mistakes. Moreover, doing so also sends the message that they can come to you if they have a problem. 

Conclusion

Peter then goes on to talk about certain tips and tricks offered through the Chart Learning Courses related to the subject. After that, he mentions how his love for learning came about and how learning has evolved in recent years. He also talks about how soft skills often require a learner to have someone to reflect on their learning with, and how Chart’s peer-to-peer coaching and senior coaches help with that. The podcast concludes with Chart and Go1’s exciting future plans.

Be sure to go listen to the full podcast here!

About Chart Learning Solutions Sweden AB. .

Chart Learning Solutions is a performance improvement company and a leading global provider of award-winning hybrid and e-learning content in professional skill development and employee accountability.

Chart Learning Solutions delivers +300 award-winning soft skill online courses in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. Recently, Chart Learning Solutions has launched Project Management online learning using Artificial Intelligence providing every user with a unique learning experience. The Project Management course is also available through the GO1 library.

To learn more about Chart Learning Solutions: www.chartlearningsolutions.com

Contact: Peter Horwing, CEO, peter.horwing@chartlearningsolutions.com