This previous post on crying at your desk resulted in more comments about finding a reasonable outlet for stress than on the actual topic of crying at work.
I’m not surprised. Everyone is connected 24 hours a day, seven days per week to everything from friends and family to co-workers and clients. It can be hard to turn off the Blackberry, stop checking e-mail and take time for yourself. But if you don’t do those things once in a while, the stress will continue to grow and that will leave you prone to losing it at your desk.
I cheat and use exercise as an opportunity to catch up with friends, let go of stress and generally clear my head. If I want company, I’ll invite friends to run with me. If I need to release aggression and just focus, I choose tennis. Running allows me to have thoughts come and go, while tennis requires complete concentration on the task at hand (or I risk taking a tennis ball to the face or running into the metal pulley on the net, ouch!).
How do you let go of the stresses of your day and keep them from building up over time?