avatarJelena

Summary

The article outlines four key self-care practices to significantly reduce work-related stress and prevent burnout, thereby enhancing job satisfaction and performance.

Abstract

The article emphasizes the importance of professional self-care by discussing four practices that can help manage work-related stress and prevent burnout. It suggests that by improving time management, prioritizing tasks, taking regular breaks and vacations, and maintaining open communication, individuals can create a more enjoyable and productive work environment. The author, Jelena, references scientific research to underscore the necessity of a good work-life balance and the limitations of self-care in addressing burnout without additional support from the workplace. The article also provides a call to action for readers to incorporate these practices into their daily routines and offers a free guide to transform the inner critic, as well as a recommendation to join Medium for access to more content.

Opinions

  • The author believes that work-related stress is a common issue that can be mitigated through intentional self-care practices.
  • Jelena advocates for a tailored approach to task management, emphasizing the importance of setting realistic goals and focusing on key tasks.
  • Regular breaks and vacations are highlighted as essential for maintaining energy and motivation, with methods like the Pomodoro technique or the 52–17 method suggested for implementation.
  • Open communication with superiors about stressors is seen as a critical step in finding solutions and receiving social support.
  • The article posits that while self-care is vital, it is not a panacea for burnout; workplace support and professional help are also necessary.
  • The author expresses that engaging in these self-care practices can lead to increased resilience, engagement, and fulfillment at work.
  • Jelena encourages readers to actively participate in their self-care by asking if they already practice the mentioned techniques and inviting them to share their experiences in the comments.

4 Ways to Significantly Reduce Stress at Work

Add these scientifically recommended practices to your daily self-care routine and experience more joy at work

Photo by krakenimages on Unsplash

Work is a big part of our lives. For most of us, we spend about one-third of our lives working. That’s about 90.000 hours of our lives!

Some of us might enjoy what we do, while some of us don’t. However, we all experience work-related stress to some degree.

To learn how to best handle this, it is important that we incorporate these four practices into our daily self-care routine which will make our professional lives better and more enjoyable.

Professional self-care

According to Butler et al.’s (2019) article on the six domains of self-care, professional self-care is an important domain. They define it as “managing or preventing work-related stress and stressors, while also reducing the risk or mitigating the effects of burnout or other workplace hazards, and increasing work performance and satisfaction.”

As we can see, there is a lot going on in their definition of professional self-care. So let’s unpack it.

Work-related stress and burnout

Work-related stress can happen for many reasons. For example, you could have too much work to do, lack job security, or have conflicts with coworkers.

Other reasons might include poor time management, or not taking enough workday breaks or vacations.

If there is a match between you and your job, you might experience positive outcomes, such as commitment, satisfaction, and high performance. But, if there is a mismatch, this could lead to elements of burnout.

Burnout equals emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and a reduced sense of motivation and achievement. People suffering from burnout have been shown to have poorer job performance, stress-related health problems, and an emotional spill over into their home lives.

One way to possibly prevent this is to find out whether your job is a good fit for you. Six aspects that determine this, include workload, control, reward, community, fairness, and values. So this means that when the workload is neither too little nor too much, you have control over the resources you need to do your work, there is a community you connect with, and the job is fair and reflects your values, this might mean it’s a good fit for you.

Once you know where you are a mismatch, you can work on finding a remedy for this. The most effective one is communicating with your boss or surroundings about it, so you can receive social support and come to a workable solution.

Burnout is the result of too much energy output and not enough energy self-invested. In other words, it’s burning too much fuel than you’ve put in your tank. ― Melissa Steginus

Fuel your tank

To decrease the risk of work-related stress and burnout, and to increase your work enjoyment and performance, try to add the following self-care practices to your daily routine:

  • Work on your time management. This means not overworking constantly, being on time at work, and setting time frames in which you want to complete your tasks.
  • Task prioritization. Prioritize your tasks for the day, by considering the deadlines, seeing what tasks are in your mailbox, and looking at the tasks that are still on your list. Make it feasible for yourself — meaning you don’t put more on your list than you can handle. What helps me is focusing on 3 big tasks for the day. If I have time, I’ll do some minor things next to that. It’s important to stay within the amount of time you have set for your work and not overwhelm and exhaust yourself.
  • Regular breaks and vacations. To have the energy and motivation to do your job well, you need to be well-rested and refreshed. To achieve this, it’s important to take regular workday breaks and vacations. For breaks, you can try the Pomodoro technique or the 52–17 method.
  • Communicate. Tell your boss when you are having a hard time. Tell them about anything that is causing you stress. Sharing this already takes the pressure off, it provides you with social support and it opens the door to finding a suitable solution to reduce or even take away your stress.

Butler et al. (2019) also specifically advise that people should try to not meet all their needs at work. A healthy work-life balance is necessary, and a crucial part of self-care.

“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” — Stephen Covey

This is important

It is important to say this: burnout is not only the individual’s problem, and self-care alone won’t fix it. Self-care is necessary, yes, but it is not enough to help burnout. For this, workplace support, process-oriented supervision, peer support, and professional help might be needed.

However, to reduce other (more minor) work-related stress and possibly prevent burnout, the abovementioned self-care practices might be a good way to go.

It can increase your resilience, engagement, and fulfillment at work. So you can do your job well, and actually find enjoyment in it.

Final thoughts

Work is a big part of our lives, so it’s important that it is something we can enjoy doing. Or at the very least, not experience stress while doing so.

To minimize the stress we experience from and at work, we can incorporate the following practices in our self-care routine:

  • Working on your time management
  • Prioritizing tasks
  • Taking regular breaks and vacations
  • Communicating

Do you already practice these things on a daily basis?

Let me know in the comments below!

Always with love,

Jelena

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