How to mentally disconnect from work without quietly quitting or taking action on your salary

When the economy is booming, jobs are plentiful, and wages are rising, you can look forward to growing your career, feeling confident in pursuing new opportunities, and taking some well-deserved time off to enjoy life. When you’re in a tough economy, it’s different. You fear a possible recession, lose your job, and struggle to make ends meet due to high inflationary costs.

It’s natural to feel uncomfortable and uncertain about the future. Fear of job loss creates anxiety and stress, leading to mental and emotional health problems. Since you fear keeping your job, you feel obligated to work long hours, cancel vacations, give up paid time off allotted to you to look good in the boss’s eyes, and gain favor by remaining employed. .

What to do to reduce your work-related stress

Job insecurity can become devastating. Worse yet, after a company-wide layoff, remaining workers find themselves burdened with the tasks and projects of those whose workforce has been reduced. Your workload can sometimes seem overwhelming, while your anxiety levels are through the roof.

Instead of quietly quitting, increasing your salary, or doing the bare minimum, here’s what you can do to manage your stress.

Make a list

To start, it’s helpful to make a list of things to do in the evening to keep you on track for the next day. Writing down your unfinished tasks reduces the time you spend worrying about them. Michael Scullin, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor University, spoke about the importance of writing a list of priorities with Psychology todayIt appears that incomplete tasks rely on what we call an increased level of cognitive activation. Scullin added, “With our daily lives and work schedules, unfinished tasks pile up on top of each other and create this cognitive activation that’s hard to put aside, unless, of course, you’re writing on this subject.

Be good to yourself

Practice the art of acceptance, recognizing that you can only do so much of what is within your control and realizing that some things are simply not within your control. Instead of worrying and constantly ruminating about work, focus on activities that you enjoy and that will help you relax. Working out at the gym, running, doing yoga or meditation can have a profound effect on your mind and body. Fitness and mindfulness exercises can help you stay calm, improve your mood, improve your memory, and relieve stress.

Additionally, a good mental hack is to ask yourself how likely it is that the worst case scenario you’re worried about will happen.

Set limits

Disconnecting from work is essential to your mental health and emotional well-being. You need to set work-life boundaries to make downtime easier. Disconnecting from work is necessary to recharge and relax after long periods of running at full throttle. This free time will help increase your productivity and engagement. You owe it to your mental health to take micro-breaks throughout the day to stay sane.