You don’t have to be Yoda in a bathrobe to stay perfectly calm under pressure.
As a species, our minds and bodies are capable of dealing with low or moderate stress. In fact, a pressurised environment can even inspire us to take on challenges and achieve more than we thought possible.
But, when anxiety becomes unrelenting, this can lead to mental health issues and physical ailments. Even Yoda has his limits!
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This makes National Stress Awareness Month, which takes place every April, a great opportunity for employers to consider new ways to reduce anxiety in the workplace.
Often this is achieved through feedback from workers . . . but what happens when your job is to alleviate stress in other people’s lives?
That’s the conundrum at the heart of working in social services.
Every day you could find yourself helping people from very different backgrounds. Some have physical challenges or learning difficulties, while others may require short or long-term assistance with economic, social or housing needs.
While ultimately fulfilling, it’s certainly a challenging role and one that puts demands on you physically and mentally.
So, whether you’re a social worker, care assistant or housing officer, looking after yourself is just as important as taking care of others.
Stress is often caused by feeling burned out, so start by managing your workload.
While you can easily learn to take time out, if your rota is more jam-packed than Granny Ina’s roly-poly, have a chat with a line manager.
Before you even feel yourself flagging, you should be able to agree a schedule that allows for rest and renergising.
There will be times, too, when your work day can be extra tough. Perhaps you’re handling a particularly delicate and emotionally-charged situation.
This is when colleagues are there to listen. Whenever you feel flummoxed by a calamitous case or stressed by sudden changes in a client’s condition, it’s good to talk.
Kind words over a coffee or after-work tipple can mean the difference between feeling you’ve done a good day’s work or endured another sad day at the office.
You can even think of these sharing moments as ways to use social care communication skills to build stress-free zones among co-workers.
Finally, look after yourself away from work, too, with a daily diet that consists of plenty of sleep, nourishment and exercise. Throw in more than a little laughter and lovin’, and you’ve the perfect stress-busting recipe.
And whichever social services role you choose, you’ll have the potential to make a massive difference to others’ lives without bringing unwanted tensions into your own.
Start by taking the stress out of job seeking with all the latest vacancies in Social Services/Housing at s1jobs.