Gen Z is suffering more stress at work than any other generation. Study after study now proves a pattern: the youngest of our workforce are burning out the fastest. There are several theories mooted for this, including Gen Z’s relative lack of financial security thanks to inflation and the rising cost of living, leaner teams and bigger workloads.

There’s also Gen Z’s much stronger expectation of a proper work/life balance. One study even suggests the reason so many Gen Z employees are struggling is because they’re seeing their middle managers burn out (hello, millennials). This suggests Gen Z may not actually be the most stressed, after all; they’re just less prepared to suck it up and accept it as a ‘normal’ part of working life. Ask any worker of any generation, and the majority will tell you they’ve experienced some sort of stress in their career. So, what should you do if you find yourself feeling frazzled and unable to work? Start with this 3-step plan.

1. Identify what causes your stress. We use the word ‘stress’ as a catchall term for many things. But there are many different types of stress, from overwhelm (we have too much on and don’t know what to turn to first) to burnout (we have worked with too-high stress levels for too long). We might be stressed because of toxic colleagues, personal issues or because we don’t know how to do something, but too often we skip past the reason and focus instead on the final feeling of, well, stress. Take time to journal or ask yourself coaching questions to try and identify your triggers so you can come up with a plan for how to tackle the cause, not just the symptoms, of stress.

2. Tell someone – ideally your manager. Sharing how you’re feeling might make you feel better in its own right, but it also triggers a legal obligation in an employer to take reasonable actions to help alleviate your stress. That might be addressing workload or challenging relationships, offering support or training or helping to enforce your boundaries. Either way, it means someone else now also has a duty of care and a motivation to help solve your stress, removing the isolation that so often accompanies stress.

3. Prioritise sleep and self-care. Eating, sleeping, exercising and hydrating well is known to lower anxiety and stress levels, while stress is proven to upset sleep patterns and make us turn to foods or behaviours that exacerbate how bad we feel. In short: stress and an unhealthy lifestyle can get stuck in a loop where they constantly impact upon and feed one another. Having clear health and wellbeing behaviours outside of work has a beneficial impact on your career – so insisting you are ‘too busy to exercise’ is a false economy when it comes to prioritising self-care.

If you are struggling with stress and need more help, try contacting Shout on 85258, a free-to-access service that you can contact by text message. Or access their resources on stress and anxiety here.