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What! Me Stressed?

What! Me Stressed?

Admitting that you have a problem is the first step to helping yourself, your family and your organization.

Slowly and steadily, stress gnawed its way into his life and became an intruder even in his household. "Other than my behavior, stress gradually started affecting my personal life. I began spending less and less time with my family," he says.

But what set the alarms off was when he started was losing interest in work. It was a gradual realization. "I realized that I was no more doing what I actually enjoyed doing," says Singh. "It was then that I decided to create some balance between my work and my life, so that I could enjoy both."

But just as stress took its toll slowly and chipped away at his life, it was important for Singh to understand that the road to recovery would also be slow.

He started by segmenting everyday issues into different compartments, attributing a separate thought to each. "This helps me analyze a situation rationally and prevents me from over-reacting and also helps me identify an apt solution," he says.

Recently, for example, Brickred had to move its entire datacenter. And, of course, it had to be done with minimum downtime. Singh says that it was terribly stressful for everyone in the team. But they did it in exactly two days. "All that was required was strategic planning," he recalls.

He also says that stress lies in the unpredictability that life has to offer. "It is not possible to foresee each and every upcoming issue. But, more often than not, it is a small problem blown out of proportion, solely by our imagination," he says.

And if logical reasoning fails to impress as his stress levels, Singh takes to car rallying. He says nothing detoxs him more than racing up the steep slopes of Leh and Ladakh.

Today, if a stressful situation makes its presence felt, Singh looks at it in the eye and says, "You have happened. Now what?"

-Shardha Subramanian

Ticked Off

Plan your work and work your plan, the saying goes. Here's another one: easier said than done. But it's worth doing says K.T. Rajan, Director-Operations IS & Projects Allergan India.

That's because working his plan allows him to move down to the next item on his to-do list. "When I have a list of things to do and I can't tick off some items, I get stressed. But I don't waste time mulling over it, instead I move on to the next task on my list," he says.

This style of work gives him a chance to catch a break. So that when he restarts, it is with renewed vigor. In most cases he says, "things work out."

But when things don't and stress takes over, Rajan finds comfort in surfing news sites - especially the offbeat ones. "Once you read something about the not-so-fortunate, you tend to have a positive flow of adrenalin," he says.

Another stress buster for Rajan is spending time with his family. He learnt the importance of this after he heard this story: "A busy dad comes home from work and his kid asks him how much money he makes.

When the father says he gets paid 30 dollars an hour, the child breaks his piggy bank, gives his dad 10 hard-earned dollars, and asks for 20 minutes," Rajan recounts.

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