Employees have been told to put themselves into the mind of a marathon runner if they wish to reduce feelings of stress in the workplace.
An article for DNA India explains this means starting out at a slow and steady speed when tackling jobs at work and building up to a steady pace.
Tel Aviv University explains this can not only reduce feelings of stress, but also lead to greater employee productivity, which may mean it is something HR professionals could wish to encourage.
Dr Danit Ein-Gar, of the University’s Recanati Graduate School of Business Administration, said people who have high levels of self control are more likely to invest all their energy at once, leading to them burning out and being unable to manage additional tasks.
"The world may be multi-tasking at a frenetic pace but in thinking like a marathon runner, people with high self-control won’t mind other people passing them," she added, while quantifying her findings as part of a series of studies presented at the Society for Consumer Psychology in San Diego.
Meanwhile, stress may be an increasing problem in the UK, with Simplyhealth recently warning one in two UK employees believed their mental and physical well-being was ignored by their employer during the recession.
Posted by Colette Paxton