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Mental Health at Work: Creating a Supportive Environment While Balancing Career & Well-Being
16 Plays4 months ago
Hello, beautiful souls! In this episode of Growing With Sol, we’re tackling a big one: mental health in the workplace. Whether you work in an office, remotely, or somewhere in between, workplace stress is real, and it follows us home more than we realize.
Did you know?
Over 80% of U.S. workers report experiencing workplace stress, and more than 50% say it impacts their personal life. If you've ever felt exhausted, unmotivated, or like work is taking over your life, this episode is for you.
What We’re Talking About:
→ The Hidden Cost of Work Stress – How long hours, unrealistic expectations, and toxic work culture impact mental health.
→ Burnout vs. Stress: Know the Difference – Recognizing the warning signs before it affects your health.
→ Setting Boundaries Without Guilt – How to disconnect from work and protect your well-being.
→ Creating a Healthier Workplace – What employers should be doing, and how you can advocate for yourself.
→ Bringing Balance Back – Small shifts that make a big difference in your energy, focus, and joy outside of work.
We’re breaking down practical strategies for managing stress, reclaiming your time, and making work work for you, not the other way around. Whether you're navigating office politics, struggling with work-life balance, or feeling drained by your job, you’re not alone... and you deserve better.
Your mental health matters. Let’s talk about it.
Join the Conversation!
How do you manage work stress? What boundaries have helped you reclaim your time? DM me or share your thoughts on socials!
Looking for support? I’m accepting coaching clients, click the links below for a connection call!
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello, beautiful souls, and welcome back to another installment Growing With Soul. My name is Marisol Moran, and I'm a certified life coach specializing in self-esteem and confidence. The Growing With Soul podcast focuses growing, healing, as well as connecting to to your true self, especially when we are looking at the very small steps we take every single day.
00:00:26
Speaker
So if you are looking grow, to heal, to express and connect with your true self, then this podcast is definitely for you.
Understanding Work-Related Stress
00:00:35
Speaker
Today's episode, we're going to be taking a look at work-related stress and why it's so important to really analyze it and figure out what we can do to manage it, to make it go away, ideally, really, and just why that's important.
00:00:52
Speaker
So to begin, why is it important? Like, what is it? why is it important? And quite frankly, it's important because the majority of us spend the majority of our lives at work.
00:01:04
Speaker
For the most part, we Since we spend most of our time there, it's going to be a huge contributing factor to our overall stress that we feel in our lives. Most of us are spending the majority of our waking hours, approximately 40 hours a week, at our workplaces, doing our jobs if we are lucky enough to work from home.
00:01:27
Speaker
But if not, we're in the office, minimum, maybe, 40 hours a week, job-related stuff.
Impact of Work on Personal Life
00:01:34
Speaker
Though, I would say, from my own personal experience, It's more than that.
00:01:39
Speaker
It really Especially if you have to commute and you live in L.A., that's at least an extra two hours where you're like doing something job related because you're commuting. If your commute is like an hour, which if it's L.A., it probably is.
00:01:52
Speaker
And on top of that, I've had jobs that essentially require you to work outside of working hours. I've had jobs where and the work was so much, there was no way I was going to meet deadlines if I only did work between 8 to 5.
00:02:11
Speaker
So I had to take work home every once in a while. On top of that, some people are doing emails all the time. I've known people who have sent and responded to emails at like midnight, at like 4 o'clock in the morning.
00:02:27
Speaker
I would never. they i took work home a couple times in my life, but I never responded to an email. That was my line. That was my boundary.
00:02:38
Speaker
But nowadays, people also have Teams, the Teams app on their phones. Don't do that. If your job doesn't require you to have Teams on your phone, don't do it.
00:02:50
Speaker
Just so't don't. it's Nothing's that important. Unless you're like a doctor, like nothing's that important. Please don't do that. But to give you a little bit of stats, a little bit of facts and figures, more than 80% of U.S. workers have reported experiencing workplace stress.
00:03:07
Speaker
And more than 50% believe their stress related to work impacts their life at home. That's the kicker. That's the important thing. important thing Because we're not just keeping our stress at work, we're bringing it home with us.
00:03:21
Speaker
And I know there is that adage of like, you know, leave work at work, which is figurative as well. Like, leave the work stress at work, don't bring it home with you. And yes, that is true.
00:03:34
Speaker
But I've learned that that is a skill that is developed over time. And it is also a skill that is difficult to maintain the more stress you're experiencing from work.
Common Workplace Stressors
00:03:46
Speaker
So what are some common workplace stressors that we are experiencing, some common mental health challenges at work? First and foremost, we're concerned about job security, especially nowadays, like potential layoffs.
00:04:02
Speaker
Stressful. If you're in the tech sector, we've had layoffs like pretty consistently. I feel like for the last like year, maybe two years, like I'm pretty sure there were some layoffs just within the last like three to six months, probably within like the I think even within the last quarter of the Q4 of last year. and So layoffs are a huge concern, especially depending on the sector you're in Reductions in assigned hours, that's a huge stressor. If you're an hourly worker and for whatever reason your hours are reduced, that's your paycheck.
00:04:34
Speaker
Your paycheck is now hundreds of dollars shorter or smaller because your hours went from 30 20 or like 20 to like 25. or like twenty to like twenty five now that Now you're thinking like, okay, this is going to impact my groceries. I'm going to be eating less.
00:04:50
Speaker
How am I going to be rent? How am I going to cover all my bills? Because now I'm working less hours. Another thing that tends to concern people and stress people out when it comes to work is lack of access to the tools and equipment needed to do things safely.
00:05:06
Speaker
If that's the case, you have, you better call a lawyer. You better report this. But again, again, you might not want to report something because fear of employer retaliation.
00:05:20
Speaker
It's a real thing. It is a very real thing. It is not supposed to happen, but it is a real thing that does happen. So therefore, we might not always report things that need to be reported or should be reported.
00:05:34
Speaker
On top of that, a lot of us already have a fear of confrontation. And whether it's at work, whether it's in our personal lives, whatever it is, if there's one thing I have learned in life and as being a life coach, is that when you're around people long enough, you're going to have some sort of level of conflict.
00:05:53
Speaker
It doesn't have to be a huge conflict. But there's going to be conflict at some point. And you might have to have a conversation you'd rather not have because you just don't want to have any potential form of confrontation.
00:06:07
Speaker
and when it's the first time you're going to have some kind of confrontation with someone, you don't know how it's going to go. you don't know how the person is going to react. So it's nerve wracking. It's very stressful. And you'd rather not do it.
00:06:19
Speaker
So a lot of people have stress around facing confrontation from customers, from patients, coworkers, supervisors, employers in general.
00:06:30
Speaker
That is a very, very stressful thing for most of us, if not all of us, really, because nobody likes confrontation. But again, ultimately, why is this important?
00:06:41
Speaker
One, when you're talking about your job in and of itself, it can impact your productivity. So if you are extremely stressed, it can impact the quality and quantity of your work, which then can add to the stress of maybe feeling like your job's at risk because maybe you're not performing how you were in the beginning or maybe how you need to be to meet certain metrics.
00:07:10
Speaker
So if you're anxious and you're anxious about your job and now you're not performing well because you're so anxious and stressed, congratulations, you played yourself. the But we can we can manage that. We can manage that, definitely.
00:07:25
Speaker
But that is something to think about. If you're so stressed, it might be impacting your work. Additionally, like I mentioned, it impacts your personal life. It permeates into other areas of your life.
00:07:37
Speaker
And how does, what does that look like? Like, what am I talking about here? Easy off the bat. You probably experienced this already too. If you are so stressed and working like crazy and stressed because of work, what's what's the last thing you want to do when you get home?
00:07:53
Speaker
Go out. The last thing you want to do when you get home after work or you clock out, close the laptop, whatever it is, the last thing you want to do is go anywhere, see anyone, talk to anyone.
00:08:07
Speaker
You're done. You're done. You want to just veg out. Maybe, maybe you want to go to the gym. If you have a dog, you maybe you'll walk your dog.
00:08:22
Speaker
But even then you're like, I'm so tired. But your dog like has to go potty. So you have to go. you have to take the dog. So that that, boom, done. like Your life doesn't exist anymore because all you do, all you have energy for energy.
00:08:36
Speaker
Wake up, go to work, go home, eat dinner, go to sleep, repeat. So your personal life disappears. Less communication with friends, less communication with family, less time spent going out and living and enjoying a life.
00:08:53
Speaker
Because if you're not doing that and in the evenings, sometimes you're so tired that you don't want to do anything on the weekend. Like, what are you going to do on the weekend? Nothing.
00:09:04
Speaker
Like, you don't plan anything. You don't do anything because you're so tired. Ultimately, some signs to look for when it comes to, like, struggles from stress.
00:09:15
Speaker
Lack of energy. But I feel like all of us kind of already know that, but we're not doing anything about it. Lack of focus. If you're at work and you can't focus. That's a huge one.
00:09:26
Speaker
Reduced creativity as well. There's some like three key things to look out for. Reduced creativity. You're not problem solving as much as we're at work as you used to You're not coming up with like can new ideas.
00:09:38
Speaker
Like nothing's fresh. Like you're just so stressed that you just want to do everything. Like just give me the system. Give me the thing. Set it, forget it, just keep going.
00:09:50
Speaker
You're not inventing anything new. You're not bringing anything fresh to the table. So those are three things to look out for three key signs that you are above and beyond stressed because of work and that now it's probably permeating and into other areas of your life.
Building a Supportive Work Environment
00:10:09
Speaker
How do we create support within the workplace? This is a huge one because, like I mentioned, we are in our workplace, whether it is physical or virtual, the majority of our waking lives.
00:10:27
Speaker
So how can we create better support systems in that place? And if you are a supervisor, a manager, or if you are in leadership, definitely pay attention to what I'm about to say.
00:10:39
Speaker
Create open, judgment-free channels for feedback. Let's get some feedback loops in there, but create them in such a way that people are willing and ready to share that feedback.
00:10:54
Speaker
So part of that does include really appreciating what people are saying, considering what people are saying, and actively thinking and strategizing how to implement the feedback that is going to benefit the overall team.
00:11:12
Speaker
Secondly, respecting everyone's time. Everyone is busy, especially if you're in an environment that's understaffed. So reach out only when you really need somebody's skill set and their knowledge.
00:11:27
Speaker
And definitely provide reasonable deadlines.
00:11:32
Speaker
Also, show appreciation for good work. If somebody's doing a good job, acknowledge them. Give them praise for their work. Like that goes a long way. But also ah classic, if you will, adequate and equitable compensation.
00:11:49
Speaker
ah You can never go wrong with that one. You can never go wrong. When it comes to like your coworkers, like employee to employee, like your team members, Be a sounding board as well.
00:12:02
Speaker
Like for a coworker, like if a coworker, especially that you trust, because I know that we can get into office politics and that's like a whole beast in and of itself. But if you're cool with someone, like definitely be that sounding board because perhaps they are experiencing something that is unfair.
00:12:18
Speaker
Maybe not like unjust, like is an issue to be reported, but maybe it's something that is a bit unfair So be that sounding board and also like let them like give them some strength, give them some energy, you know, like, hey, like that's actually like not cool for whatever reason, like you should bring that up or be that sounding board, be that that person to support them they're They need to be advocating for themselves in whatever way, maybe to get um new leads or if it's to maybe support them and maybe getting a promotion or getting like a bonus or something and like help them out.
00:12:59
Speaker
Give them that confidence, that boost. Like let them like strategize with you. Be that person for them. Be that support as well. So like not only focusing on your own career and how to lift yourself up, but also how to lift up others as well.
00:13:14
Speaker
Because one of the things I think we often forget when it comes to the workplace is that we are a community. A lot of us might go to work and be like, I'm here because I need that check.
00:13:26
Speaker
I really like these people anyway. i get it. I've had that type of environment in my life before as well. At the same time, the workplace is still a form of community.
00:13:38
Speaker
So if there is a way to uplift others as well, it's definitely going to help to the overall, like improve the overall vibes.
Strategies for Managing Stress
00:13:48
Speaker
For oneself, when you're dealing with all that stress from work and it's impacting everything, how can you find balance?
00:13:57
Speaker
Depending on the level of stress and what's going on in your personal life, I want to highlight that employers, especially like full-time employers, they do provide resources. So there are usually EAPs, Employee Assistance Programs.
00:14:12
Speaker
Reach out to hr they They might be able to help you out. And if you're so stressed that it is impacting work or there is something else going on, there are resources out there through your employers, through HR, where you can get some sort of assistance.
00:14:28
Speaker
So look into that if you might need it, if that's the case, like look into that. Also look into your health insurance for like mental health benefits and insurance coverage.
00:14:39
Speaker
What is that offering you as well to help you manage your stress?
00:14:44
Speaker
If we're not quite at that level per se or you want to maybe try things out, you feel like if you're in that that rut of wake up, work, dinner, sleep, repeat, and then it's Friday and you're just like, I'm still so tired. i don't want to do anything this weekend.
00:15:02
Speaker
So you just stay home all weekend and don't do anything. You don't have a life anymore. But then that also adds to your stress because now you're not enjoying life. Make some time for yourself. As simple as that may sound and it's like, oh novel idea.
00:15:17
Speaker
It's much harder to do. then we realize because how many of us are actually making time for ourselves? How many of us are actually taking time for things that bring vibrancy into our lives?
00:15:36
Speaker
Think about it. What is it that nourishes your soul, that nourishes your heart, that nourishes your body? What are those things for you? Are you actually including them in your daily, weekly lives?
00:15:53
Speaker
That's like legitimately think about that. And if you're not, how can you start doing that? What are your hobbies? How can you incorporate things into your routine?
00:16:05
Speaker
What about your nutrition? What about your hydration? Simple things we don't do, myself included. i go through like my waves of like being on top of all of it and then the waves where I'm not on top of it anymore.
00:16:17
Speaker
It fluctuates. So what can you do to get back on top of those things?
00:16:23
Speaker
We are also social creatures. Make time to connect. Especially if you're in a work environment where the office politics are just off the charts and you're just like, I don't don't really trust any of these people.
00:16:42
Speaker
it Everything is so fake. I hate that like office environment culture. i've I've been in in in offices like that before. Those are the times where you really need to connect with your friends and your family, people that you love and love to be around.
00:17:00
Speaker
Connect with them more. Schedule it. Like legitimately, if you are that busy and that tired and that and have that lack of motivation and that lack of energy to do things outside of what's simple within like your own living space,
00:17:18
Speaker
Put it on your calendar. Schedule it week in advance. Make the plans so that you do go. for one, am one that, like, I love putting things on my calendar.
00:17:30
Speaker
I personally love having plans, like, a week in advance. ah Though I will admit, like, if you've been, if if you're my family, it doesn't have to be that way necessarily, like, if we're close. And also with my friends, like, the closer I am to someone, the less notice I need for us to hang out.
00:17:48
Speaker
But I do definitely love to have things on a calendar and love to know things in advance. But those are just some simple things that you can do. Just please remember when it comes to work stress and balancing everything out, it's not easy.
00:18:02
Speaker
Work stress is not easy to contend with because you are dealing with or kind of at the mercy of how supportive are. your workplace is when it comes to well-being and work-life balance, as well as the nature of your own job. We all like we all have different jobs.
00:18:19
Speaker
We're all in different sectors. The stress levels might ebb and flow. Maybe it's a seasonal stress level. Whatever it is, figure out how your workplace operates and And then how you can maybe create boundaries around that in your life.
00:18:35
Speaker
What you can do in order to nourish your soul. is it having a more of a morning routine and have time for yourself in the morning? Are you more of a morning person? Or do you need more sleep? How can you do that?
00:18:48
Speaker
Figure out what your environment is and what's causing your stress. And then what are the potential solutions in order to bring more balance and joy and vibrancy into your life?
00:19:01
Speaker
So I know it's a lot to take in, but at the end of the day, we are focused on de-stressing, creating a little bit more balance, and overall, finding more joy in life.
00:19:14
Speaker
Thank you for tuning in to the Gory Whistle Podcast. If you appreciated today's episode, definitely subscribe, give it a like and leave a review because it helps.
00:19:26
Speaker
Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at yourcoachmari and I am on TikTok, threads, as well as Instagram. And if you are looking for support when it comes to figuring out how do I even, like I'm so stressed, I don't even know how to dissect this hit me up.
00:19:46
Speaker
I am accepting clients and you can fill out click the link in the share notes and fill that out in order to have a discovery call with me and we can talk it out. Until next time, keep growing.