How to reduce workplace stress

Feeling stressed? You aren’t alone.

Stress is a common and frequent experience. According to recent Gallup research, four in 10 adults worldwide admit that they experience a lot of worry or stress. That number sets new records—even beating 2020 (undeniably, a year notorious for peak stress and anxiety).

The truth is, it’s easy to feel frazzled and worn down these days. There’s inflation and the rising cost of living. Geopolitical instability. Climate change. And all of that is on top of the stressors unique to your personal life—children, aging parents, managing your own finances, maintaining a household.

Oof. Our hearts are racing just thinking about all of it.

But there’s another stress trigger we haven’t even mentioned yet: our jobs. When it comes to soaring stress levels, our careers play a big role. A whopping 83% of workers in the US deal with work-related stress, and 25% actually point to their job as the number one stressor in their lives.

The stressing truth about excessive stress

Stress is prevalent—but it’s certainly not fun. You’re probably all too familiar with the chest tightness, irritability, and the overall feeling that there will never be enough hours in the day.

Snapping at a loved one or being unable to tame your racing thoughts are unpleasant enough stress symptoms on their own. However, excessive and prolonged stress do more than make you prickly. There’s a lot of other not-so-great stuff happening in your brain and your body.

How stress impacts your physical health

As humans, our bodies are hardwired to have a specific response to a stressful situation (you’ve probably heard it called the “fight or flight response”). That mechanism is healthy and completely normal—it’s intended to keep you safe.

The problems happen when you’re constantly stressed and, as a result, can’t seem to turn off your stress response. The Mayo Clinic explains that a “long-term activation of the stress response system” is hard on your body and can put you at increased risk for:

• Digestive problems
• Headaches
• Muscle tension and pain
• Heart disease, heart attack, high blood pressure, and stroke
• Sleep problems
• Weight gain
• Memory and concentration impairment

Fatigue is another common symptom and effect of persistent stress. Simply put, all of that hustle is draining and your body is paying for it.

How stress impacts your mental health

It probably goes without saying that prolonged stress has plenty of negative effects on your mental well-being as well.

Research shows that chronic stress puts you at increased risk for anxiety and depression. Plus, chronic stress impacts your personal life too—particularly your relationships, whether romantic or otherwise. That only feeds your feelings of stress and the negative cycle of feeling both down and alone.

How to manage your own work-related stress

Alright, so the potential effects of stress are…well, stressful. The good news is there are some stress reduction techniques you can use on an individual level to keep your own level of stress—and, as a result, your physical, mental, and emotional health—in check.

1. Understand your stressors

Some simple reflection can do a lot here. When you find yourself feeling stressed out, grab a pen and a notebook and jot down:

• How are you feeling? Do you feel any physical symptoms? What’s going on in your head?
• What inspired this feeling? Was it a request from a colleague? An unexpected childcare cancellation?
• What’s the root cause? Your well-meaning colleague might’ve been the one who made you snap, but that doesn’t mean they’re the stressor. You could be channeling stress from other situations into that interaction. Dig deeper to understand what’s at play.
• How are you coping with this emotion? Are you going for a walk? Typing angry emails? Screaming into a pillow?

Not only does the simple act of getting your own emotions out on paper help you manage them (it’s called “name it to tame it,” coined by psychiatrist Dan Siegel), but it also gives you the opportunity to better understand and identify patterns between your stress triggers and your typical reactions to them.

2. Prioritize healthy habits

Okay, this isn’t novel advice: You should maintain a somewhat healthy diet, get some regular physical activity, and prioritize healthy sleep habits. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Eye roll. You get it.

You know those things are important, but they’re also the things that quickly go down the drain when you’re dealing with extreme stress. When your work-life balance is in the gutter, it’s easy to feel like you don’t have any time for your own self-care.

However, even if this advice feels trite, prioritizing things like exercise, diet, and sleep really will help with your stress levels—with an added bonus of giving you a greater sense of control over your life (which is extra important when you feel like things are running off the rails).

Healthier habits don’t have to mean overhauling your entire lifestyle and routine. Even small things can make a big difference, such as:

• Try a walking meeting. You can take a stroll outside with a colleague or grab your phone and call into that meeting while on the treadmill.
• Actually take a lunch break. As tempting as it is to stay chained to your desk when you have so much to do, a quick break (even 10 minutes!) works wonders for your stress levels and your productivity.
• Do some deep breathing exercises. It’s oft-cited advice (“Just take a breath!”) and a common relaxation technique for a reason: it works. Breathing deep supplies more oxygen to your brain and helps you feel calmer.
• Manage your screen time. Your phone is an easy crutch for some mindless and seemingly harmless scrolling, but too much staring at devices actually increases your stress levels—so it’s important to be mindful of how much time you’re spending glued to a screen. Set some screen time limits or put your phone in another room if you have to.

3. Set and enforce your own boundaries

When it comes to dealing with the daily grind and managing your own level of stress, boundaries are your best friend. It’s up to you to set and enforce expectations about your personal and professional life.

Maybe you won’t do any work on weekends or vacations. Or perhaps you’ll sign off by 5pm each day to spend time with your family and loved ones.

Determine the boundaries that are important for your own stress management and well-being and then openly share them with the people you work with. That will keep them in the loop (and help you avoid any feelings of guilt), while simultaneously building a group of people to hold you accountable.

4. Be ruthless with your prioritization

If you start each workday by looking down at a to-do list that could fill a phonebook, it’s hardly surprising that you feel overwhelmed and exhausted.

While you might think you’re doing yourself a favor by getting every last task and reminder out on paper, you’re really only burying yourself under unrealistic expectations. It’s time to be cutthroat with your time management and determine what you actually need to focus on.

Need help? The prioritization matrix is a simple, four-quadrant matrix that helps you sort your to-do’s into four categories:

• Urgent and important
• Not urgent and important
• Urgent and not important
• Not urgent and not important

It’s an easy and intuitive way to pick through all of those things on your neverending list and determine what needs your attention, what can be delegated, and what can fall off your to-do list entirely.

5. Schedule your personal time

Your life shouldn’t be all work and no play—but that’s what happens when you’re stuck with a heavy workload and excessive workplace stress. You sacrifice all of your personal and leisure time for seemingly greater output (ahem, that’s toxic productivity).

You deserve time for hobbies and relaxation, especially since they improve your mental health and your stress levels. If you’ve been unable to make time for those things up to this point, it’s time to quite literally block time on your calendar and honor it like you would any other regular meeting or commitment.

If you’re worried you’ll still bypass that scheduled time, try committing to a class (whether it’s yoga, pottery, or anything else you’re interested in) or asking a friend to do things with you. It’s harder to skip out on those things when you’re accountable to someone else.

How to reduce workplace stress on your team

Employee burnout has been a topic of conversation for years now, with the World Health Organization even classifying it as an “occupational phenomenon” back in 2019. If you’re a leader of a team or an entire business, then employee well-being needs to be near the top of your priority list.

Here’s the thing, though: No amount of deep breathing techniques will combat the sky-high stress levels from unreasonable demands and workloads. No company-sponsored yoga retreat will make up for inadequate compensation.

So before you get sucked in by grabby perks or trends, the best thing you can do to prioritize worker well-being and stress management is to ensure the basics are in place within your organization. This means confirming that you offer:

• Reasonable workloads
• Fair compensation and benefits
• Clear expectations, roles, and responsibilities
• Adequate tools and resources

You need those first before you can expect anything else to make a meaningful difference. When you check those boxes, there are a few other tactics you can use to provide a positive work environment and ensure jobs aren’t the primary source of stress for your employees:

• Offer benefits specifically related to mental health and well-being. An impressive 67% of employees say they want their employer to provide mental health support. That can take shape in a number of different ways, like access to counseling or expanding resources.
• Solicit employee feedback. Ask specifically about common workplace stressors in your organization and then take action to manage those better.
• Provide adequate training to leaders and managers. Equip them with the knowledge and resources to recognize and respond to signs of stress on their own teams, as well as training about how to talk about potentially sensitive issues like burnout or interpersonal stressors.
• Offer flexible schedules. If your business can swing it, flexible schedules go a long way in managing stress, helping employees maintain a healthy work-life balance, and achieving better job satisfaction. An eye-popping 94% of employees say they want flexibility.
• Schedule social activities. Find ways to give in-person, remote, or hybrid teams opportunities to connect outside of the demands of their job. These social connections and this type of social support don’t just build a stronger team—they also help reduce stress.
• Model healthy habits. Are you answering emails at all hours of the day? Constantly piling more on your own plate? Choking down a sandwich during a Zoom meeting because you didn’t take time for lunch? That sends a message to your employees that they should follow suit. As simple as it seems, managing your own stress is one of the biggest nudges for employees to do the same.
• Maintain an honest and transparent company culture. People should feel encouraged to talk openly about their moods and stressors with the people who will understand and relate to them best: their colleagues. Practice being vulnerable yourself by sharing your own challenges or frustrations. You can even do something as simple as a “feelings check” ahead of a team meeting and ask people to drop an emoji that describes how they currently feel.

Breathe in, breathe out, and then do something

Stress is a common and frequent emotion—especially given the seemingly endless wrenches the past few years have tossed our way.

But just because stress is prevalent doesn’t mean it’s always positive. A little bit of stress from time to time is perfectly normal and predictable, but if you or your employees are dealing with constant and extreme stress, it’s time to take action and find the right stress management techniques.

Feel like we just added yet another thing to your to-do list? Well, take note that this one is well worth doing.