Communicate to make change happen:

• Choose a quiet time and place to talk to a manager or mentor whom you trust to start a conversation about feeling stressed

• Tell them how this is impacting your performance

• Let them know what is lacking in your job and what you need more of

 Keep work and life in balance:

• Stick to start and end times most days, or if flexi working, keep to contracted hours

• Be assertive about your role boundaries and practise saying ‘no’ when you need to

• When you are aware you are thinking of work at home, press pause, write down your concern to deal with tomorrow, and refocus on home life again

Manage your mindset

• Check in with your mindset and see where you are along a negative-positive spectrum

• Think about the purpose in your work and why you do it

• Look for the good in each day and ask yourself:

- What is actually going well?

- Why did it go well?

- What did that have to do with you?

Prioritise stress management at work

• Always take the break you are entitled to at lunch time

• If you need ten minutes to reboot, then take ten to do whatever helps – this will increase productivity! 

• Periodically, stand, stretch, breathe slowly and focus on what you see, hear and smell. Going outside to do this is even better

Improve the quality of work relationships

• Listen purposefully to others

• Don’t dig into your perspective; instead, pause, step back, engage empathy and try a new approach

• Recognise when tension is present and reset the emotional tone by asking what you can do to help the other person right now

Further reading:

• Using the Growth Mindset to cope with difficult times

• The ABCs of reducing work related stress