How to Deal with Contagious Re-Entry Stress?

Re-entry stress is contagious. It doesn’t only affect individual employees at your workplace; instead, the negative feelings spread all around.

Re-entry anxiety causes psychological impact, and these emotional imbalances can further affect work performances. Research studies show that human beings have a natural habit of catching emotions from their surrounding people. They can also mimic postures, behaviors, and facial expressions, especially from people who spend more time around. This mimic happens at the workplace as well.

Many of you must have experienced emotional contagion action at some point at work. For instance, the pessimistic mood of one person draws energy at a meeting. The managers at the workplace need to be very careful to deal with contagious emotions. Furthermore, as the business sector is now resuming work post-covid-19 lockdowns, people may face more re-entry stress. Adjusting to these new typical situations is not that easy. Therefore, it is necessary to follow expert guidelines to succeed. Below we have listed a few tips and tricks to help you deal with these reactive feelings:

Know your emotional temperature

When you are playing the role of a leader, you can be highly affected by emotional contagion. Therefore, it would be best to act like an active mood inductor because others may observe your authority and power in the team. On the other hand, if you are burdened with too many fears and worries, you may feel low and transfer these negative emotions to others. Therefore, it is better to clean your feelings from time to time to stay balanced and active. Assess your emotional state carefully and take relevant actions to deter negativity from your mind.

Visualize your boundaries

Receiving direct calls for a return to work may cause some anxieties and stress in your mind. The re-opening fears will occur in every team member’s mind, and their focus will further trigger more worries for you. If you act like a sensitive person, you may get highly affected by their interactions, and these residual feelings may stay for several hours. It is better to visualize your boundaries and then create a shield to deal with these emotional influences. It may help you to stay protected while enjoying higher energy levels.

Leverage empathy

Do not get wholly involved in fear-ignited thinking. Instead, it is good to create a line between others’ anxiety levels and your feelings. Leverage empathy and use these moments as the best opportunity to shift into a state of validation and compassion. It is better to encourage a fact-based and solution-oriented problem-solving approach. Even if your nervous system is acting panic to the return to work call, you need to find ways to make this transition smoother for you. As a manager, you also need to extend support to other team members to adjust to the new normal and the hybrid working environment.

Once you start following these trusted tips from experts at Global Investment Strategies, they can soon bring you incredible results at work.