Workload: Ease the stress!

Do you know this? Stable work, office work, pressure to meet deadlines, low bank balances, constant availability - all this can get us down. "I'm under stress," you hear in unison. Too much pressure, too much hectic, too much strain - due to our fast-paced, modern lifestyle, topics such as stress management and burn-out are gaining in importance. Nowadays, it is not only whiners and sensitive people who feel exhausted and burnt out; stress has long since become a widespread disease. Farmers are also increasingly affected by it.

Stress is commonly associated with something negative. Far from it! Stress is vital for us. It awakens performance reserves - you run up to peak performance, like an athlete in a competition. But the problem is: even when it is not a matter of life and death, one stress wave after another is often triggered today. Stress is no longer linked to a short episode followed by exhaustion or relaxation, but has become a permanent condition.

The most important rule is therefore: to recognise stress early and prevent it with prevention. Stress reduction is easier if stress has not already reached boiling point.

Effective stress management first requires an inventory in which you differentiate and evaluate the individual stress triggers. All stressors that could be burdening you are noted and evaluated. This creates clarity about the causes, which you can address individually. This is a prerequisite for developing patterns of action.

To get the work done on time, the pace is increased and with it the risk of mistakes. Younger farmers in particular think this is the right thing to do and develop into "pace-holics" in the process. They want to prove that they can cope with a fast pace and accept the stress. Yet a high work pace is not always synonymous with high efficiency. "The grass doesn't grow faster if you pull on it," says an African proverb. If you want to do more and more, better and better, faster and faster, you lose the ability to feel serenity. You get further and further into the performance spiral, which can lead to psychological problems.

The perfectionist also belongs to the stress types. They think in black and white categories: What is not super is automatically bad. With this view, one's attention is not drawn to one's strengths, but to one's weaknesses. As a result, fear of failure arises. The perfectionist also does not like to admit that something is too much for him. Most of the time, this can turn into workaholism and be the cause of burn-out.

1. It can be helpful to talk to someone about the stressful situation. The "talking it out" method opens the valve, which brings relief. If you talk about stress, you can exaggerate the facts a little - the main thing is that you have found a listener who is sympathetic and understanding. After all, it's not about getting tips on how to cope.
2. If you know that the current stress will have little meaning in a week's time, is it even worth noticing it? Why get angry today if it will be meaningless later? - In the case of low stress without long-term effects, the "outlook" method is favourable. Then you just click on "delete", like on a computer.
3. With the "comparison" method, you look back: Has there been a similar stressful situation before and how did it go? In doing so, you realise that it rarely turned out as bad as you suspected. In other words: Become more relaxed. Because if you don't get upset or anxious so quickly in challenging situations, you will be more resilient.