Checklist: are you stressed?
Work Stress Week is the perfect moment to pause and reflect on stress in the workplace. Use our checklist to check whether stress is playing too big a role.
How does it work?
- Take a moment for yourself and ask: am I experiencing too much stress right now? Go through the checklist below with visible and invisible signs of stress.
- Can you tick off more than 10? Then you are probably experiencing quite a lot of stress at the moment.
- Too much stress? At the bottom you will find a few possible next steps.
Visible signs
Behaviour:
- Overtime / falling behind with work
- Underperforming
- Mixing up priorities
- Carelessness
- Mistakes
- (Near) accidents
- Few or no breaks
- Social isolation
- Eating / drinking more, or less healthily
- Smoking more
- Jumping from one thing to another
- Getting thrown off balance too easily
Mental / emotional:
- Irritable
- Aggressive
- Anxious
- Uninspired
- Easily startled
- Unmotivated
- Dissatisfied
- Forgetful / absent-minded
- Sarcastic
- Gloomy
- Indecisive
- Chaotic
Physical:
- Overtired
- Losing or gaining weight
- Nail biting
- Shaking / trembling
- Sweating
- Tics
- Crying often
- Tense posture
- Hyperventilating
- Skin rash
- Colds that come more often / last longer
- Headaches
Invisible signs
Behaviour:
- Less relaxation
- Not enough relaxation
- More need for relaxation
- Talking less about difficult situations
- Not enough / no mental support
Mental / emotional:
- No distance from work
- Worrying about home
- Feelings of sadness / depression
- Blaming yourself
- Fear of the future
- A sense of unreality
- A feeling of discomfort
- A feeling of restlessness
- Insecurity
- A feeling of disinterest
- Persistent worrying thoughts
Physical:
- Tension in the neck or shoulders
- Dizziness / weakness
- Seeing stars
- Trouble sleeping
- Headaches / migraine
- Bloated feeling
- Stomach ache / digestive complaints
- High blood pressure
- Palpitations
- Chest pain
Wondering what you can do about too much stress?
A temporary state of stress is not abnormal. Feeling stressed now and then can even help us stay sharp and reach our goals. But when stress lasts too long, or recovering from a stress reaction becomes difficult, it is important to pay attention to it. Long-term stress without enough recovery can lead to burnout, chronic fatigue and other health problems.
Here are a few steps to get a grip on your stress:
- Look into the cause of your stress and try to tackle the source. Is it workload? A difficult working relationship with someone? Or perhaps worries outside work? Try to identify the underlying cause and think about how best to tackle it. Is a specific person involved? Then consider starting a conversation and sharing honestly how you feel.
- Make a habit of checking your stress level regularly, because stress can creep up without you noticing. Every few weeks, plan a moment to go through the stress checklist, and adjust where needed. Reducing stress is not a one-off action; it takes regular attention and small steps in the right direction.
- Learn more about stress, to gain insight into your stress patterns and learn tools to work on them actively. We find the stress module from Mindlab by BloomUp useful for this :)
- Want extra support? If you notice that stress persists despite your efforts, it can help to talk to a professional. Consider an introduction with one of our mental sidekicks.
With these steps you can tackle your stress level step by step and stop it from taking over without you noticing.
Would you like BloomUp to support your organization? Book a no-obligation conversation.
Written by:
Aline Hupert
