Yoga for Management: Workload and Stress

Sunrise in South India

Contrary to popular belief, Yoga is not just about postures (asanas that you do with your body) but a science and technology to align mind, body, energies, and emotions in a singular direction to bring joy, bliss, and success into the lives of everyone. From my experience working in the corporate management, backpacking around the world, and studying & practising yoga for many years, I would like to share a few 'yoga for management' articles on how managers and career-focused individuals could benefit from Yoga philosophy and have practical tips handy to take action.

What is our workload?

Anyone who works in a competitive industry understands the challenges they face with work-life balance and the stress they experience while managing their workloads. Whether the workload is about project deliverables, sales, keeping up with communications, networking, spending time with family, or other areas that expect your availability. All of us have the same 24 hours in a day. The more things you get involved in a day, the thinner the slices of your pie get. So what is your workload? How do you spend your time in a day, and how many of those things you do are for your family, for yourself, and for your livelihood? Take a moment, and think about them.

Why do we experience stress?

Before I go any further, I would like to point out that frequent "stress" is not normal in humans. Because it is so common in the current state of affairs, everyone gave-in to the idea that having stress in everyday life is normal. Work, by itself is not stress inducing; however, the way one manages their workloads has direct effect on the amount of stress they experience.

From a general understanding, stress is a physical, mental, or emotional agent that causes tension in body or mind which can be induced by external or internal sources. The body reacts to these changes with physical, mental, and emotional responses. Another way to look at stress is -- you are working in a way that is not in-line with yourself i.e., your body, mind, energies, or emotions. And your actions are causing friction within yourself. A lot of science is out there regarding the effects of stress on human physical, emotional, and mental health.

So, how does one take on workload that balances their days and minimises Stress?

Yoga and workload

Before we delve into how one can choose a balanced workload, let's see what Yoga says about workload.In the classical Patanjali yoga system, there are eight limbs to the yoga philosophy. The first limb is called Yamas. These are the attitudes a person could adopt during their interactions with the society (including your workplace and family). There are five Yamas. One of them talks about Aparigraha (अपरिग्रहः). In simple terms it means non-greed and non-attachment. But looking at it in-depth, it refers to ones' need to take on only those things that are necessary for their joy and not hoard possessions, emotions, responsibilities, and other things that disturb their inner balance.Extending this idea to workload, one should only take-on workload or responsibilities that give them joy and minimise those that cause stress. It is highly challenging in the current workplace to fully adopt this idea; however, one can strive towards getting as close to it as possible.

How to identify stress-inducing workload?

Let's do a practical exercise to identify stress inducing workload from everything that you do in a day. Take some time and list down all the things you do in a day including the ones you do for yourself, for your family & friends, for your career, and for your community/society. Now take a moment and think about this -- if you had an unlimited amount of time, health, and money in this world what would you do when you wake up tomorrow morning? If those things are not on your list, add them to the list as well.

Now take some time and analyse the list.

Go through each item and label them as below. Feel free to assign more than one label to each item.

• In the first column next to each item, mark a 'Joy' or 'J' sign next to them if you enjoy doing them even if you are not paid or appreciated for it.
• In the second column, mark a 'Happy' or 'H' sign next to the items that you enjoy doing, you get paid for them, and you also feel satisfied/appreciated for those things.
• In the third column, mark an 'Obligation' or 'O' sign next to the items that you don't enjoy doing but they are your obligations at work, in relationships, or at other places that you signed-up to do.

What is causing your stress?

The more items from the 'Obligation' category are filling up your day, your stress levels will automatically go up. If you have more of 'Joy' and 'Happy' items on your list, you feel more satisfied with your day and your stress levels will be low. Even if you are overloaded with items that make you happy and joyful, at most you will be tired & exhausted, but not stressed.It is important to note that reducing 'O' items is not very easy. Most of these items on the obligation list are very hard to let go for many people because of various reasons that are unique for their life situation. The idea here is not to let all of them go right away but to identify them as the reason for your stress and start looking for ways to minimise them or turn them into 'Happy' items.

Practical tips to reduce stress

Depending on your life, relationship, and work situation the list of obligations you have may be short or very long. But you could do some practical things to minimise these items and reduce stress.

Regarding work obligations:

• Agree on clear requirements and set realistic expectations for your responsibilities. If you think that you've overpromised something or you're over extending your efforts, go ahead and contact the appropriate people and reset the expectations as soon as possible.
• Towards the end of your workday, each day, take a few minutes to reflect on your day and identify the areas that were stressful for you. Think of ways you could handle those areas differently in future to make them less stressful.
• Learn to consciously delegate. The work that is causing you stress might sometimes be exciting to others. Reach out to your colleagues and see if you could delegate some of your workload to others who are interested in it.
• Prioritise your workload, and focus each day on getting the high priority items done first.

Regarding relationship obligations:

• Re-think the relationships that feel like an obligation, and those that drain your energies. Ask yourself why are you still keeping that relationship. If that relationship is not easy to let go, try and reduce the amount of time you spend in that relationship, if possible.
• Learn to communicate your needs honestly and set realistic expectations in all your relationships.
• Respect and value your need for happiness and joy in your life. Compromise as little as possible to give that away to satisfy others' needs.

A few other practical things you could do to reduce stress:

• Make sure you do yogic breathing whenever you feel stressed. Breathe deep into your stomach slowly for four seconds and breathe out slowly for four seconds. Repeat 10 rounds. When you are stressed, you take shallow breaths into your chest and deprive yourself of the much needed oxygen into your body. Breathe deep into your stomach and observe the stress levels going down immediately.
• Focus on eating freshly cooked meals rather than canned foods or fast foods. Include more fresh vegetables and fruits into your diet. The life energy (Prana) we need to function stress free is available a lot more in fresh foods.
• Take regular breaks from whatever you are doing and go for short walks. Get some sun and fresh air. Sun and fresh air gives you a lot of positive life energy (Prana). And not to mention, a change of setting frequently, helps in keeping your stress under control.
• If it interests you, take up a meditation practise for 5 - 10 minutes everyday. Learning to be mindful and having the ability to observe your own thoughts and emotions is a powerful way to tackle your stress.
• Spend more time in nature. If you can't go to nature, bring it to your workplace or home. Have some natural plants at home and at work. Nature's designs are beautiful to look at and they are also powerful stress busters.

There is no easy solution that addresses stress for everyone, because the stress itself comes in varying degrees and for different reasons in each person. But if you identify the things that are causing you stress at work, and in relationships, you could work towards reducing your stress and making your days more happy and joyful.

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