Work It Podcast: Self-care tips when your job gets too stressful

Tight schedules, endless tasks and demanding expectations – these are the daily realities for many working professionals.

Emergency medicine physicians and authors Dr Adaira Landry and Dr Resa Lewiss share practical strategies on how to stay well despite busy lives. 

Here's an excerpt from the conversation: 

Gerald Tan, host:
There's this one tip, one micro skill that's in the book about offloading routine tasks that bring you no joy or purpose.

Many Singaporeans will want to rehearse that conversation because they can't wait to get things off their responsibility, but they don't know how. They don't know how to speak to their bosses about it, they would just suffer in silence.

So tell us, how does that practically work out?

Dr Adaira Landry, co-author and emergency medicine physician:
It's very important for us to make it clear that we are not referring to the core roles of your job, I have given many lectures on this exact topic.

We should have a sense of happiness, a sense of purpose, a sense of growth when we're doing work right, and if you're not having that, then perhaps the work you're doing is not right for you.

And inevitably, every single time I give this lecture, someone more senior raises their hand and says: "Are you telling people to quit their job? Because if I hired you for something and you tell me you're not going to do it because it doesn't bring you joy, I can't keep you there."

And so I think that's a big, very important distinction ... What we're referring to is different.

These are a lot of the more optional tasks that still fill our plate, that still cause mental overwhelm and burden.

I have used ChatGPT as well for navigating conversations in anticipation for having it. And so there's all sorts of ways you can do it.

And if that is the case, that's an important discussion for you to have with your personal "board of directors".

So the way I do it typically is if there something I don't want to do, I think about the stakes of this. Like, is this something where if I say no or I quit, my supervisor would be upset or disappointed? It would impact my salary, my promotion? 

Dr Resa Lewiss, co-author and emergency medicine physician:

There's a really good graphic in the book where we talk about automating, delegating, and there are a few others, and some things can just be taken off the plate.

Let's say you want to train up someone who hasn't learned this skill that you no longer really are feeling it and you actually don't need it for doing the core roles and responsibilities of your job.

By taking things off the plate that leaves opportunity for more things, or for you to actually do some more of that deliberate rest.