4 Ways to Cope With Nonprofit Stress Before it Kills You
Workplace stress can kill you. Literally. Ever heard of Karoshi? It's a Japanese term that should scare the hell out of you.
Karoshi means death from overwork. Overwork and excessive stress cause health problems, such as cerebral / heart diseases, mental disorders, and, eventually, death.
In Japan, employees are literally being worked to death. And it's not a long shot to compare the situation in Japan to the stress imposed on nonprofit workers in America. In fact, the more you love your nonprofit job, the higher your risk for stress and burnout. It sounds counterintutive, but according to Ivancevich, Konopaske, and Matteson:
The irony of burnout is that those most susceptible to are those most committed to their work; all else being equal, lower job committment equals lower likelihood of burnout.
Stress and burnout are also more likely for women, single workers and young nonprofit professionals. So if you're a young, single woman working in a nonprofit job that you love, you are at the highest risk to crash and burn at some point in your career. What often happens is that nonprofit workers get so used to the stress of working long hours and making things happen with little resources, that they forget to actually deal with the effects that the stress has on their health, well being, and overall job satisfaction. The warning signs of stress include:
- Feeling drained by work
- Difficulty getting up in the morning to go to work
- Developing a pattern of coming to work late
- Becoming irritable with co-workers
- Neglecting your appearance at work
- Producing increasingly sloppy, messy work
It doesn't have to be that way. If you find yourself feeling stressed, here are four ways to cope with it before you completely burn out.
- Exercise regularly: Make time in the morning, evening, or on your lunch break to get in 30 minutes of exercise. No excuses! It doesn't have to complicated - simply walking, running, jogging, jumping jacks, sit-ups, or push-ups will do the trick. Find a workout buddy to hit the gym with you and burn off calories as well as stress from your job.
- Read light, nonwork oriented fiction or poetry: It doesn't help you to work long hours, then take home work-related reports to read at home over dinner. If you like to read, find something that is completely unrelated to your job that will lift your spirits or engage your imagination.
- Take personal days off: Sometimes you just need to take a day off. Not your week long vacation that you take once a year, just for a personal day to chill out and calm down. My friend calls this "taking a mental health day" because it's not planned way in advance, it's just a way to take a little time to clear your mind. Especially if you just finished a big fundraising campaign or completed the launch of a new program, it may be time to take a breather and recharge for the next project. Your body needs a break from stress going from one big thing to another.
- Meditate: Take five minutes to center yourself during the day. Go for a walk, sit in the park and just breath. Don't think about work or reflect on all the things you need to do when you get back to the office. Just be quiet and very still. Pray if that is part of your spiritual practice. Notice the sights and sounds of nature around you and let yourself feel gratitude for simply being alive. I guarantee you will feel much calmer when you get back to work. Read more about meditation here.
More tips on managing stress in the nonprofit workplace: How to Manage the Stress of Work at a Charity
Concepts adapted from Organizational Behavior and Management by Ivancevich, Konopaske, and Matteson
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