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It doesn’t matter if you hate your job or love every second of it: work can be stressful.
Being stuck behind a desk while the sun is shining can bring out the whinging, eye-rolling monster in all of us.
But now, there is an actual, scientific reason for venting to your closest confidantes – i.e. your ‘work wife’.
Dr Vanessa Pouthier, a researcher from the University of Melbourne, studied a team of colleagues at a hospital in the US over a period of 12 months.
She found that having a laugh coupled with a healthy dose of complaining can have a positive effect on staff relationships and overall moods.
‘Generally, people don’t think there’s any value to it or they think it has no place in the workplace,’ Dr Pouthier told ABC Radio Perth.
‘It helps people to process stress and frustration and you notice palpable changes when team members engaged in both activities.’
Dr Pouthier believes venting to your workmates results in a ‘bonding’ experience, which helps employees properly deal with feelings of negativity.
‘It allows people to recognise how similar they are in the challenges they’re facing every day and how they feel about them,’ she added.
‘One of the best things in the team I observed, was that these griping rituals helped doctors and nurses realised they were feeling the same way about situations and they weren’t that different.’
Even better, Dr Puthier also said joking around can help ‘turn a problematic situation into a source of humour’.
Good news all round then!
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