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With Christmas hurtling towards us we often find requests for support over stress start to increase. This particularly hits in January and February, where the impact of what has gone on in December starts to be felt. The key to managing stress is to deal with it early and prevent it reaching critical or acute stages. There are lots of approaches which can help and are useful to consider when looking at how to manage stress, and in this case we are thinking of workplace stress for yourself or your employees, and how massage might be a way to help!
Stress
Stress is not clear cut as a term. What people don't often realise is that there are some positive stresses such as short term stress before doing something new and then there is damaging stress and long term or chronic stress. It is also very personal. What some people thrive on can be negatively stressful for others.
Stress in the workplace can often be the negative type, depending on the role and person. High levels of stress over extended periods of time and potentially combined with personal stress can manifest in a variety of different ways, none of which are conducive to a good working environment. A treatment that is swiftly gaining traction is massage. Massage has several well documented health benefits, all of which can reduce stress, which from an employer's perspective also aid productivity and boost workplace morale.
According to some surveys, over 60% of employees end their day with back or neck pain. Compound this over several weeks or months, you end up with a high percentage of your workforce in constant discomfort. Chronic and persistent pain can have a hugely negative effect on both the physical and mental wellbeing of your employees, which is obviously something everyone wants to avoid personally and professionally.
One way to tackle this problem is with massage. Even as little as 15 minutes a day can have pain reducing benefits, which in turn lessen workplace stress, boosting productivity and reliability.
Massage
Massage could be on-site, like an on-site gym, or off-site. Some companies provide office massage services, where massage therapists can be booked to come into the office from of-site locations and offer massages to employees. This flexibility means that it's never been easier to access the benefits of massage, and thus benefit from the stress busting benefits it has to offer.
Massage can also aid in preventing sleep deprivation. Not getting enough sleep is one of the key factors in increasing stress levels. And it is a vicious cycle, because the more stressed you are, the less well you sleep, which in turn heightens stress. Massage can relax you and help you sleep. It’s a great way to improve the amount and quality of your sleep, which in turn, breaks the vicious cycle and helps reduce stress.
For a long time, employers have known that a balanced diet and plenty of exercise has positive effects on reducing stress levels. It may not be long before we start to view massage in the same way. If that happens, we can expect to find either on or off-site massage therapy being offered by more and more employers. This can only be a good thing for everyone involved!
Here at the Beehive we have a number of massage services available to help, for more information please have a look at this link: Massage at Beehive.
If you are experiencing stress at a level which is adversely impacting your life and mental health then please do seek help. Whether it be from a GP, mental health professional or a charity it is important to recognise it is time to ask for help and take action.
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