Useful post from Mind in Stress Awareness Month

Stress isn’t a diagnosed mental illness—but it can be just as debilitating.

Every day, many of us find ourselves overwhelmed, burned out, and eventually signed off work… because of stress. Not depression. Not anxiety. Just stress.

 But “just” stress has real consequences.

🔹 It impacts our concentration, productivity, and motivation.

 🔹 It affects sleep, appetite, and energy.

 🔹 It can lead to serious mental health issues like anxiety or depression.

Stress often goes unnoticed, unsupported, and unspoken. Somehow we have normalised it. It falls into a grey area—too common to be flagged, but too harmful to ignore.

Here are some things we can do as leaders and managers:

✅ Acknowledge it early. Stress is a signal – we need to listen to it before it gets too bad, and encourage our team members to do so too.

✅ Create space for conversations. Ask your team how they’re really doing. Not just about their targets, but actually about them.

✅ Encourage boundaries. That “just one more email” mentality adds up. Try to show balance in your approach to work and life.

✅ Offer support. Mental health days, flexible schedules, and access to wellbeing training and counselling services aren't benefits—they can be essential.

Stress may not be a disorder, but it deserves serious attention. If we treat it early and with compassion, we can prevent a lot of unnecessary suffering, and time off work.

Let’s stop normalising stress and trying to be busy all of the time.