Five tips to lower stress at workplace

When it comes to lowering stress at work, studies from around the world have yielded a set of five tips, with advice ranging from grabbing 40 winks at your desk to taking your pet to work.

The first tip highlighted by New Scientist magazine is that workers should be sociable - but not too sociable.

British research has shown that sociability is good for the health, with a study of thousands of civil servants revealing that moral support from colleagues, encouragement from supervisors and clear direction from bosses kept stress levels down.

Male civil servants who lacked support in the workplace were 31 per cent more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression, and women 43 per cent.

However, too much socializing could lead to work piling up.

The second tip is to ensure your surroundings are as pleasant as possible.

Simply being able to see your colleagues makes the working day much more manageable, with the height ofpartitionsdividing up office space affecting stress levels.

Surprisingly, the higher the partition is, the more people complain about noise from their neighbours.

Research from the University of Montreal shows that the optimum partition height is 4ft 3ins (1.3m) - high enough to provide privacy but low enough to ensure staff do not feel isolated.

The third piece of advice for workers is to learn to switch off.

Mobile phones and other electronic equipment should be switched off after hours to allow burnt-out brain cells to recharge.

Playing with a cat or dog can also aid relaxation and if workers can persuade their boss to let them into the office then the day will fly by.

如果要緩解工作時的壓力，可以參考世界各地的研究得出的五大妙法，其中包括在辦公桌前眨眼40下以及帶著你的寵物去上班等。

《新科學雜志》強調的第一大妙法是，要善于交際，但不要過頭。

英國有研究表明，善于交際有利于健康，一項對幾千名公務員的調查發現，同事的精神支持、上司的鼓勵和老板給予的明確指示可以緩解工作壓力。

在工作中缺乏支持的男公務員心情焦慮、情緒低落的可能性比得到支持的人高31%，而女公務員的這一比例則為43%。

然而，過于愛交際則會導致工作干不完。

第二大妙法是保證令人愉快的工作環境。

辦公室里用以分隔空間的隔板高度會影響壓力的大小，所以在工作時只要讓自己能看見周圍的同事，你這一天就會舒心得多。

奇怪的是，辦公室的隔板越高，覺得周圍噪音大的人越多。

蒙特利爾大學有研究表明，辦公室里隔板的最佳高度為1.3米，這個高度足以保護隱私，又不會讓員工感到孤立。

第三大建議是學會“關機”。

下班后關掉手機和其它一些電子設備，讓自己養精蓄銳。

和寵物一起玩耍也有助于放松，如果能說服老板允許員工帶寵物上班，那一天就過得飛快啦！

Vocabulary:
partition : 辦公室里常用的“隔板”