Want to Innovate More? Then Stress Less!

Are you feeling stressed? There are continuous warnings of money being in short supply, bills having to be paid, contracts that have to be maintained, and so on. Unfortunately, if you want to innovate, you will need more than good idea management software. You will also need a harmonious environment in which people don’t feel stressed. People who experience high levels of stress are not like to be very creative, simply because they have too many other things on their mind.

The Science Behind Stress and Creativity

A study has been completed at the University of London, where scientists looked that the impact of improving well-being and lowering stress had on their ability to come up with innovative ideas. Participants in the trial were asked to take part in a three-part course in which they learned about overall well-being and stress. It was found that this reasonably simple course encouraged people to put better solutions in place to manage their own stress levels. Interestingly, doing so also made them more creative, ensuring they could come up with innovative ideas in the workplace.

This isn’t the first time that this type of research has been conducted and that these results have been shown. Instead, numerous pieces of research and studies have shown that calm and relaxed people are much more likely to come up with new and innovative ideas. People who were stressed out, by contrast, seemed to stop thinking creatively. This makes sense, as these people are likely to simply have too much on their mind to think outside of the box as well.

How to Stress Less

There are numerous ways in which people can figure out how to stress less and become creative one again. Lots of this information is available online. Additionally, there are now numerous companies that have developed programs in which employees can learn how to reduce their stress levels, many of which are based on the three-part course used by the University of London in their research.

One way to help people stress less, interestingly, is to make sure that they learn something new and interesting every day, something that is not necessarily related to their actual work. Doing so gives them the opportunity to just turn their mind away from their stress, even if it is just for a short period of time. It is easy enough to send a company-wide message out at the end of each day with a titbit of interesting information.

Here’s one to get you started: did you know people often work for companies of which the initials match those of their name? The chance of your first initial matching that of the company you work for is actually one in nine, more than 10%, in other words. That is significant! Psychologically speaking, it is believed that this is because people find it easier to identify with something that starts with the same initials, and when people can identify with something, they are more likely to trust it as well.