4 ways to stop taking your work stress out on your significant other

4 ways to stop taking your work stress out on your significant other4 ways to stop taking your work stress out on your significant otherAt the end of a long and tense day at the office, we often take our work stress out on our significant other. As pressure builds with job worries, your partner is often the brunt of your job stress.Weve asked experts for their strategies on how to keep your emotions in check and your love at the top of your to-do-list.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreRe-channel your stressWhen you feel like your stress levels are peaking, turn to mindful activities to de-escalate.Try to find an activity that helps reduce your stress levels such as meditation, mindfulness, journaling, exercise or reading, suggests Heidi McBain, MA, LMFT, LPC, PMH-C, a therapist specializing in womens mental wellness. This mindful approach can not only help stress it can be the ca talyst for self-discovery and creative inspiration.Appreciate your relationshipMonte Drenner, a licensed counselor and life coach, says that your significant other is significant meaning that they can help you deal with the stress by talking about it.Making your significant other feel insignificant by being angry or rude to them about your stress is not fair to them, Drenner explains. Rather, they deserve to be treated in a loving and respectful way, he says, which in the long term decreases your stress because the relationship will be stronger.Make yourself a priorityConsider what you need to do on your own behalf after a day or week of high stress and integrate it into your life.For some people, thats alone time, for others its time with friends or family, while some need to veg out in front of the TV, others take a long hike, says business consultant Linda J. Carpenter, Ph.D. If you matter to yourself, you both take care of yourself and value your unique demands and needs. It is critical that you matter in your own life if you are going to have the fuel to care for the people and organizations you love the most.Negotiate for what you needDont assume the people you love can read your mind or that their needs stop because you are stressed.Sit down with the people you love and negotiate how you can get what you need and how they can get what they need during this high-stress time, suggests Carpenter. Look for the ways you can all matter and be fierce about holding to what youve negotiated.You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from Benjamin Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people