How do you not stress about work?

[C1239]

Work is awful at the moment, so stressful, massive pressure, got a crazy couple of months coming up. Feel like I’m letting it get to me & im being a crap wife outside of work as my mind is consumed by work. How do you not let the stress get to you?

I used to have a job like this. Massive workload, lots of meetings that needed lots of preparation work done. Lots of really long documents to undergo very detailed review. Juggling a million things at once and never keeping up. I remember hating Sundays, I had such a sense of dread of going into work on the Monday. Even when I reduced to part time hours it made no difference.

Honestly, I'm so glad I'm out of it now. I now do a job that's busy, but nowhere near the same workload or stress. I'm so much happier now, I enjoy my job, and although it can sometimes be stressful, it's nothing compared to that old job. Once it starts to really impact your home life then I think you need to re-evaluate.

Exercise is a good distraction

But The main thing is to enjoy what you do. I spent years feeling stressed at work

Then changed direction to a job I love. I've never looked back. Mid week / weekend? It's all the same to me. I like both equally

For me i think it was just reaching a level of peak stress and pushing through it and suddenly I reached IDGAF - a very free-internet feeling. I do my best but I just don’t have capacity to take on other peoples (patients) stress anymore so I just do my job to the best of my ability and no longer worry about their response to it (I sleep at night knowing I’m offering a good level of service). Helps knowing my sector is so short staffed I will NEVER get fired (flip side is the job is terrible which is why no one wants to do it)

Better boundaries are probably what’s needed.

I just stopped giving a fuck and just do my job to the best of my ability for my contracted hours. That’s it.

Fair enough, I know I won’t ever get a six figure salary in my profession with my attitude, but I dont need it.

I am really happy with my work life balance.

Are you simply trying to do too much? Just stop.

I love my job but it can take over the rest of my life, and I’m prone to stressing about certain projects.
What’s helped is:
Not checking emails in the evening - and definitely not replying to them on my phone. Not everyone works the same hours - if I’m feeling particularly overworked then I’ll pop an out-of-office with my shift times on for a couple of days, so it’s clear why I’m not responding straight away.

Doing stuff asap when I’m at work and not letting the stressy tasks fester at the bottom of the To Do list. They are never as bad as you think.

Delegating, and genuinely letting the person you’ve delegated to actually do it, not hover over them stressing about doing it your way.

I repeat my husband’s favourite saying ‘ How do you eat an elephant? A bite at a time ‘
I’m only one person so I do the best I can in the time available. Everything else can wait.
We were advised not to bring books home with us to mark at the beginning of covid and I’ve stuck to that( with only a couple of exceptions ). It it doesn’t get done between 8.30 and 5 then it doesn’t get done.I sacrificed too many of my evenings with my own children when they were little. I’m not doing it anymore.
Also the gym. Or beating the shit out of a punchbag!

Also following this thread. Sometimes I get so anxious about work that it ruins my entire weekend, not just Sunday, the whole thing....

Thank you @Thepeopleversuswork I could not agree more. It is necessary to strike a balance true but cliches like that are unhelpfully one-dimensional and designed to keep you (especially women) in their place.

I found a new job. I was so miserable I had no other choice but to.

By having passions and interests outside your job that are strong enough to take your mind off it.

By realising it's just a job and it just pays the bills. Yea that's important but it shouldn't be your whole life.

I'm finding this last month awful and I swear its all these stupid bank holidays. I've lost 20 hours of productivity and work has piled up as a result. Half term coming makes it worse. Roll on June for a better month I think!

It really depends what you do. What happens if your job is your passion, but it's also stressful?

@gardendream 's advice is fantastic. Are you relatively new to your current type of work? As in less than 10 years? I have found with experience comes reduced stress. I have much more responsibility now but also have 20 years experience to tell me that the sky doesn't in fact fall, the world doesn't end, most people aren't awful and even when the worst happens, there is usually a way through.

I was much more stressed when I was younger and less experienced. Also once life outside work has dealt you enough shit, work stress feels entirely manageable. I leave it when I switch off.

My job is office based so no life or death decisions for me.
I just tell myself, you can only do what you can do in your working hours. I am fairly good to sticking to just working them and no more and also, what's the worst that can happen? Nobody is going to die. The worst thing is that I deliver late which isn't uncommon in my workplace as often they start projects without getting all their ducks in a row so things are often out of my control anyway.
They aren't going to fire me so I just do my best and make sure I work to live not the other way around.

I don't know. It's tough tbh. I run in my lunch hour for stress relief.
To be honest, I've carved out a niche for myself that I'm the only person in our place who does my shift (10-6, everyone else goes for 8-4) and is happy to take samples late (lab work).
This gives me peace of mind that they won't get rid of me.
Make to do lists or put little reminders on post its. I'm guilty of replying to emails on my phone over breakfast, but then that's one task done before I get to the office.
If all else fails, know they'd replace you very easily.

Take the dog for a long walk with an interesting podcast. Cycling to and from work (avoiding traffic and physical exhaustion stops the over-thinking). Going to the pub and playing cards with my family. And my latest is duolingo in the evenings.

I can't let my mind wonder otherwise i end up focusing on work issues.

Basically i try to fill my mind with distractions. Seems to work for me.

There is some very good advice on this thread but special thanks to @gardendream I feel like printing off your post and putting it above my desk!

What is this magical job! I need to rethink!

I've witnessed my son experience Anaphylaxis several times. Compared to that work never feels stressful and I swear it's those experiences that have given me a cool in a crisis reputation. Admittedly I don't know if I would be able to cope with bring a medic, the whole "their life in my hands" I find another level of stressful.

That said I know the other reason is a supportive workplace that pulls together at stressful times.

My job is stressful, i've been doing it for 15 years and it used to really get to me. As I've got older, I've had so many genuinely awful life crisises over the years, that the work stuff just doesn't bother me like it used to. I'm of the opinion that if no one's died, is seriously hurt or anything else completely catastrophic, then it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. All you can do is your best.

I think it depends on your role, but be pragmatic about what's the worst that could happen? I've always worked in finance/it and if it goes slower than plan/deadlines aren't met/mistakes are made, well noone is going to die from it.

I also was worked to the point of breakdown in one of my previous jobs and I think sometimes you have to have that really shitty experience to realise its not worth it. I'm now hyper vigilant that I book time out to make sure I have lunch every day, stick strictly to my hours and do not check email/teams outside of working hours. If I do need to put in a couple of hours extra, I always balance that at other times and if I'm working outside of 9-5, I make sure I'm appearing invisible and schedule any messages to arrive the next working day - if you don't have strict boundaries, people will definitely try to push!

I also worked in budgeting headcount for a while, which really helped my outlook on things - if you have too much work to do in your assigned hours, the answer is always delegate more or a new hire is needed. You are helping noone working 1.5 x a role - when you're off, your team will be stressing to cover and when the team is budgeted for, you'll be making results appear more conservative than they should be!

My colleague gave me similar advice this week. She said to me look at the rest of the team ( small team and getting smaller due to staff cutbacks). All the others have been here years and plod along doing not a lot as they've learned that no one checks up on them or holds them accountable. Then there's you running around trying to do everything, getting stressed, and never saying no getting burnt out and the more you do it the more they will dump on you. She is right. One colleague has been off sick for a few weeks and it has become apparent that actually she does so little that whilst we have missed her, we aren't actually having to pick up very much extra work. The rest of my team just do the bare minimum. I have found a new job but am definitely going to have a different approach in the new one.

I think it basically comes down to temperament. I'm retired now but worked for many years in potentially very stressful profession. However, I was always able to tell myself that if I'd done the best I could then there was no point in stressing about what hadn't been done and I left it behind me as I walked out of the door.

This. Well, temperament and life experience.

I got much better at switching off as I got older, and it became clearer that work was only one part of my life.

Ironically, I have also become much better at walking away from work since we have been so understaffed. Back in the day, if I worked later into the evening, or for a few hours at the weekend, I could clear back logs, or 'catch up' close to where I'd like to be. Now, the workload is so ridiculous I won't ever get to a state of getting it all done, well, so, oddly I find it easier to say "I've done my hours - if they want more, they will have to employ more people".

It is going to depend massively on what your job is though.

The short answer is that I just don't. I've always been very clear that when I'm working I'm working and when I'm not I'm not. From barman at 20 to director now.

I don't have my work emails on my phone, I have automated alerts that come through if something goes drastically wrong, and the people that have my phone number know only to phone out of work hours in a dire emergency.

I work hard during my work hours, but once I'm finished for the day I'm don't thinking about work. I do once every few months work an evening or weekend if needed, but when that happens I generally consider that something's gone wrong somewhere, and put steps in place to make sure that circumstance doesn't happen again.

I am a therapist. I often work with sexual trauma, other types of trauma as well, but mostly sexual. I have found I need to do other work too to balance it out. I do sex therapy and that is often joyful, so I can do lots of that. Spreading types if work across the week is important for me.

I also consciously decompress. I have a buffer between home and work (though I actually work from home). However, I will finish and just sit and breathe, do a wee but of yoga, stretch and then I am actually finished work.