Happy Christmas! Use the holiday to reduce stress symptoms for you and your team.

Hey it is nearly Christmas!

Only a few more days to go and it will be Christmas!  Hopefully an opportunity to take a few days off, be with family, relax and enjoy.

But it isn't always like that is it?  Sometimes company culture gets under our skin and despite being away from work, it takes ages to 'switch off' and be 'present' with those that we are spending our time with.  Sometimes we seem to have part of our minds still at work either because we have a great work ethic or maybe we feel that we need to seem to be still working at some level in order to impress our managers.

'Time Off' means time away from work, it means putting our work behind us, clearing our minds and investing time with ourselves, our friends and family.  If you are still in work mode at whatever level then not only are you neglecting those dearest to you, but you are neglecting yourself and you are probably not really making a difference at work either.  So no one wins.  If, however you allow yourself to completely switch off then you have an opportunity to reward yourself for your hard work, rekindle important relationships and prepare yourself for coming back to work revitalised.

Here are some useful statistics regarding stress from the Health and Safety Executive;

The latest estimates from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) show:

• The total number of cases of work related stress, depression or anxiety in 2014/15 was 440,000 cases, a prevalence rate of 1380 per 100,000 workers.
• The number of new cases was 234,000 , an incidence rate of 740 per 100,000 workers. The estimated number and rate have remained broadly flat for more than a decade.
• The total number of working days lost due to this condition in 2014/15 was 9.9 million days. This equated to an average of 23 days lost per case.
• In 2014/15 stress accounted for 35% of all work related ill health cases and 43% of all working days lost due to ill health.
• Stress is more prevalent in public service industries, such as education; health and social care; and public administration and defence.
• By occupation, jobs that are common across public service industries (such as health; teaching; business, media and public service professionals) show higher levels of stress as compared to all jobs. 
• The main work factors cited by respondents as causing work related stress, depression or anxiety (LFS, 2009/10-2011/12) were workload pressures, including tight deadlines and too much responsibility and a lack of managerial support.

So you can see that it is important to rest and have fun and be away from work.  If you are a manager then you have a responsibility to educate your team and make sure that they rest, don't put expectations on them that puts them at risk of being stressed whilst off work.  Allow them to go , rest and come back as even better versions of themselves.

With this in mind, I would like to wish you a fantastic Christmas and a successful New Year!