Can hating your job cause anxiety?

The commute, the job, and the cycle starts all over again the next day, the next week, the next year. It's like a never-ending loop. Work is required by the majority of us in order to maintain our way of life. Also, given that we spend one-third of our life working, it is important to make an effort to shake the idea that you are only a machine rather than a real person who is alive and breathing rather than an automaton.

Not only does our common sense tell us this, but also the findings of modern science support it. According to a plethora of studies, the repercussions of being unhappy at your work may have a negative influence on your general mental health, leading to issues with sleeping, anxiety, and depression. You shouldn't expect to be able to leave your job or find another one overnight, but there are things you can do to make yourself happy in the position you already have. And that comes with a number of significant advantages.

"Being happy at work makes us more engaged, interested, creative, and resilient," says Keynote Speaker and Corporate Trainer Eric Karpinski, M.B.A., author of the forthcoming book Put Happiness to Work. This may eventually lead to greater service, sales, and profitability. When we have a positive and optimistic frame of mind, not only are we more engaged in what we're doing, but we're also more likely to see chances that, if we had a pessimistic outlook, we would have overlooked. This is how you work pleasure into your daily routine at the workplace.

1. Practice Gratitude

You have undoubtedly been told this before, but have you put it into practice? "Taking only two minutes out of each day to write down three particular things you're thankful for may really start to rewire your brain," says Karpinsky. "[T]he practice of gratitude has been shown to have a positive impact on health and well-being." He describes how, by continuing to do this over a period of time, we might activate a variety of neuropathways. According to Karpinski, "New synapsis between neurons form, which subsequently make this practice simpler; thus, over time, it becomes a default way of looking at the environment."

Over time, you will become more attuned to the positive aspects of your environment without having to make an intentional effort to seek them out. "Research suggests that if individuals practice thankfulness for 21 days in a row, they will become more optimistic—even up to six months later." [Citation needed] Another advantage of keeping a thankfulness notebook is the way it will make you feel when you go back and read entries from earlier in the year. It's almost like having the opportunity to see the gentlest and most straightforward version of oneself; it's just you, but in candlelight that brings out your best features.

2. Carry out acts of charity with a mindful attitude.

The advantages will become clear to you as soon as you can get past the fact that this seems to have been taken from a bumper sticker from the 1970s. In principle, it's a wonderful idea to hunt for chances to do good deeds, such as helping an elderly person cross the street. In practice, however, it's not always simple to discover these kinds of opportunities on demand. Karpinski advocates incorporating this approach into your daily routine so that you don't have to wait for a fortuitous meeting. Send a brief email to a member of your professional network with a compliment or a few words of encouragement before you begin working on your daily to-do list. This will set the tone for the rest of your day. According to what Karpinski has to say about the topic, "the act of sending bursts of pleasant emotion to other people helps them feel good, which in turn puts you in a good mood for the day."

3. Practice Meditation in a Unique Way

Karpinski recommends that you close your eyes and, rather of concentrating on your breathing, you should think about sending well wishes to individuals in your life who are simple to love, such as your dog, your grandpa, or your baby. These might be well wishes such as "May you live a life filled with happiness" or "May you enjoy a life filled with serenity." Or simply a simple "I love you." After you have had some practice with this and have a sense of how it feels—perhaps you feel warm, or it makes your heart feel full, or it makes you smile and relax—slowly transfer these good vibes to people in the office who might frustrate you. Once you have had some practice with this and have a sense of how it feels, you can then slowly transfer these good vibes to people in the office who might frustrate you. According to Karpinski, doing this "in the present" may assist get rid of negative energy towards people and build greater empathy. This is particularly helpful before having a tough talk with them.

Download an app like Headspace and enroll in the "Happiness" course if you feel as if you need a little more motivation to get started. You might also go to tarabrach.com and listen to the meditation she calls "Blessings of Love." You will be able to imagine those happy sentiments spreading beyond yourself and touching the life of another person using these as well as other guided meditations. This particular part of the meditation is essential for the development of compassion.

4. Find a colleague to work with.

According to Karpinski, having strong connections at work might really boost one's productivity. "Connection, feeling like we belong, and feeling like we're supported are major drivers of happiness," he adds. "[T]hey are powerful drivers of happiness." In point of fact, research has shown that those who have close friends at work are seven times more likely to be interested in their professions, create better quality work, have greater levels of well-being, and are less likely to get hurt while working.

5. Step Outside to Get Some Air

Several advantages to one's mood may be derived from this. The simple act of going for a quick walk, even if it's only around the block for 15 minutes, may make you feel more energized and hence more productive. According to Karpinski, practicing mindfulness in the natural world by concentrating on any aspect of the environment that you can locate, such as trees, flowers, or grass, may bring about great feelings and assist you in resetting for the remainder of the day.

6. Declutter Your Desk

According to research, living in a cluttered environment may have a detrimental impact on everything from our levels of stress and anxiety to our capacity to concentrate, our eating habits, and even the quality of sleep we get. The simple act of cleaning up your cube of all of the stray papers, empty coffee cups, and unfiled documents may fundamentally improve your mindset as well as your overall productivity. Period.

7. Adapt a Mentality of Being Helpful

According to Karpinski, the goal is to determine who will eventually profit from the job that you perform and to constantly remind yourself of how critical it is that you are contributing to society in a positive way. Obviously, this is much easier to understand if you work in the medical field or for a pharmaceutical company, for example (the work you do ultimately helps people get better), but even if you're in the service industry or don't even care about the end product, it's possible that you're assisting your coworkers or employees in making enough money to provide for their families. "Feeling this sort of connection can help you discover greater drive and purpose in your own profession," says Karpinski. "It's important to strike a balance between work and life."

An experiment that is often referenced on the topic of work motivation was conducted by Dan Ariely, PhD, a professor of behavioral economics at Duke University. In the experiment, participants were instructed to construct Lego toys. They received a payment of $2 for the first one, and then a payment that was significantly lower for each subsequent one. In one group, the research assistant put the completed Lego models to the side after they had been assembled. The research assistant in the other group would disassemble the toys as soon as they were turned in, directly in front of the people who had built them.

The outcome of the competition was that the first group constructed 11 Lego toys while the second group could only manage seven. People who believed their labor didn't matter were more likely to get irritated and give up more quickly, according to this notion. There have been other research that have shown the same results.

8. Adorn Your Neighboring Areas

Put it down to the ever-increasing prevalence of open workplace configurations: The concept of private offices is almost extinct. And research suggests that workers might become more distracted, worried, and less motivated and productive as a result of the worry that practically your whole company is staring over their shoulder. However, the same researchers found that employees had a greater sense of ownership, control, and comfort when they were able to decorate their space with things that mattered to them, such as photos, artwork, and mementos. This may help employees better cope with the stress and distractions that come with their jobs.

9. Get to bed at an earlier hour.

Or, if it doesn't work, try sleeping in a little bit longer than you normally would. In any case, getting more sleep will improve your mood. There is no magic number, such as eight hours a night, that is kept a secret. Everyone has a somewhat unique internal clock that regulates their sleep. The goal is to have a consciousness that is in sync with yours. This is why: If you are very exhausted, your reflexes will be slower, and your judgment will be clouded in the same manner (and to the same degree) as if you were intoxicated. Therefore, this is one of the many excellent reasons why you should avoid going to work when you are overtired. Another one is as follows: The capacity to recognize and react appropriately to unpleasant feelings is hindered when a person is very exhausted, as has been shown by scientific research. It's not a good mix at all. Even for the scientists who are investigating the occurrence. In one case, the people who participated in the study were so exhausted that they were unable to follow the instructions for the portion of the research that examined their level of moodiness.

10. Buy A Plant

At the very least, scientists have theorized that having plants and other forms of greenery in the workplace makes employees happy and contributes to higher levels of productivity. Now, thanks to a comprehensive research conducted in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, we have access to even more information that is based on actual office settings. According to the primary researcher, Marlon Nieuwenhuis, from the School of Psychology at Cardiff University, investing in plants in the workplace would pay off via an improvement in the quality of life and productivity of office employees. According to the findings of the study, having plants in the workplace considerably enhanced feelings of happiness in the job, as well as self-reported levels of focus and the perception of air quality. The researchers hypothesize that the reason plants improve mood and attention is because workers are more involved in their work environment when they are surrounded by plants.