How to Manage Stress and Prevent Burnout in the Workplace
By Melody Wright, LMFT
It started on a Wednesday.
I was sitting at my desk, halfway through a meeting, when I realized I hadn’t stopped all morning.
My inbox was overflowing, my shoulders ached, and my brain was locked on one thought: “Just get through the day.”
Sound familiar?
Workplace stress has become so normalized that many of us don’t notice how much it’s draining our energy and dysregulating our nervous system, until we’re completely depleted.
While many of us desire to be okay and live with a sense of purpose and peace, it’s hard to regulate and find those moments in the midst of hustle culture.
If this is resonating with you, I want to remind you that you cannot continue to push through and find that sense of peace.
Regulating comes from slowing down, creating space for rest, and allowing your body to return to balance.
The good news? You can learn to manage stress and prevent burnout from work.
If you’ve been struggling to manage stress during the work day, I have come up with 7 ways (grounded in psychology, holistic health, and my own lived experience) to support nervous system recovery and help you restore balance at work.
7 Ways To Manage Stress and Prevent Burnout at Work
1. Start your day with intention, not reaction
Before the day begins to pull you in a dozen directions, take a few minutes to decide how you want to move through it.
What kind of energy do you want to bring into your meetings, your emails, your interactions?
What words describe how you want to feel?
🌻Calm
🌻Present
🌻Grounded
🌻Open
🌻Focused
Starting your day with intention means consciously choosing how you want to show up, rather than reacting to whatever comes first.
That might involve:
Reviewing your schedule the night before
Prioritizing what matters most, or
Setting a gentle theme for the day (ex: “steady,” “patient,” or “clear.”)
When you orient your day around intention, you teach your nervous system what safety feels like before the chaos begins.
By starting your day with intention and direction, you’ll notice that your focus sharpens and your communication will feel smoother, helping your entire day flow more naturally.
2. Take mini-breaks to reset your nervous system
We often think rest requires a long pause, but your body can begin to reset in less than two minutes.
Try standing up, walking around the office, taking a quick stretch, or taking three slow breaths between meetings.
These short rests signal to your nervous system that the last task is complete and it’s safe to shift gears.
When you add in short moments of recovery throughout the day, you prevent stress from stacking up and give your body a chance to restore energy as you go.
“Sustaining your well-being at work isn’t about avoiding stress altogether; it’s about learning to recover in real time so you can stay steady and clear-headed through the day’s demands.”
3. Notice the stories your mind tells you
When something stressful happens, like a missed deadline, a hard conversation, or unexpected feedback, your body reacts first. You may notice your heart rate increase, your chest might tighten, and your brain might start creating a story to make sense of it.
Those thoughts might sound like:
💔 “I can’t handle this.”
💔 “I always mess up.”
💔 “They must be disappointed in me.”
These aren’t just random negative thoughts; they’re signs that your nervous system is activated and your brain is trying to protect you from perceived danger, including fear of failure, rejection, or perfectionism.
When you slow down and notice those stories with curiosity instead of judgment, you interrupt the thoughts that lead to stress, overwhelm, and burnout.
Try gently reframing the thought with compassion by saying:
“This is stressful, but I’m capable of working through it.”
“I made a mistake, but I can repair it.”
Meeting your thoughts this way helps your body feel supported instead of threatened.
You’ll find it’s easier to stay composed in difficult moments and to keep your day moving without carrying the emotional weight of every challenge that comes up in the workday.
4. Regulate your body, not just your calendar
No amount of color-coded scheduling can fix a dysregulated nervous system. Before diving into the next task or meeting, take a moment to return to your body.
Notice your posture, unclench your jaw, drop your shoulders, and take one deep breath.
Pay attention to the signals your body gives you, when your chest tightens or your breath shortens, pause and reconnect:
Press your feet into the ground
Exhale longer than you inhale
Look around the room and name what you see
These techniques are called grounding tools. They help your nervous system register safety, allowing focus, creativity, and clarity to return.
When your body feels steady, you’re able to think clearly, communicate effectively, and move through the workday with more ease.
If you would like more grounding tools for the office, check out our free download, 20 Calming Techniques You Can Do at Your Desk.
5. Protect your energy through clear boundaries
For many people, boundaries can feel uncomfortable, especially if you’ve spent years equating being dependable with saying “yes.”
You might worry that setting limits will disappoint others, create conflict, or make you seem less committed. Those feelings are valid. Boundaries can stir up a lot of vulnerability, especially in work cultures that reward constant availability.
But boundaries aren’t about pulling away; they’re about protecting your capacity, the energy that lets you show up fully and sustainably.
When you say “no” to what drains you, you’re saying “yes” to focus, presence, and longevity in the work you care about.
Start small. End your workday on time, pause before taking on a new task, or take your lunch break without multitasking.
“Each time you honor your limits, you signal safety to your nervous system, and you’ll notice how much clearer and more balanced you feel during your workday.”
If you would like to learn more about boundaries, check out our blog, Mindful Limits: The Connection Between Boundaries and Self-Compassion.
6. Reconnect with your purpose
There will be seasons when work feels more like survival than purpose; that’s just the ebbs and flows of life. But when your nervous system is in constant go-mode, it might be harder to connect to what matters, especially the moments when everything starts to feel like just another task to get through.
You might catch yourself thinking, “What’s the point?” or drifting through the day on autopilot.
It’s okay if you don’t feel inspired every day.
Sometimes reconnecting with purpose begins with noticing the smallest things that matter.
Maybe it’s the way your work supports your family.
Maybe it’s helping a client feel seen, finding a creative solution to a problem, or being part of a team that makes someone’s day easier.
Or maybe it’s the quiet pride of doing something well, even when no one’s watching.
Purpose doesn’t remove stress, but it gives your mind and body something to anchor to when things feel heavy.
When you reconnect to why you’re doing what you do, even in small ways, you bring meaning back into your workday and remind your nervous system that effort and purpose can coexist.
7. Lead with self-compassion
Managing stress isn’t built by being hard on yourself; it’s built by showing yourself compassion.
When you make a mistake, fall behind, or feel overwhelmed, notice how you speak to yourself.
Would you say those same words to a colleague or a friend?
I want you to try offering yourself the same understanding.
Self-compassion keeps your nervous system calm, which helps your brain recover, refocus, and stay adaptable.
Remember, when you treat yourself with kindness instead of criticism, your entire workday shifts. You’ll handle challenges with patience and end the day feeling grounded rather than drained.
Final Thoughts/Reflections
Work will always bring deadlines, challenges, and unpredictable moments, but the way you meet them determines how your body and mind experience the day.
Remember, managing stress and preventing burnout isn’t about doing more or toughing it out.
It’s about slowing down enough to notice what your body needs, creating space for recovery, and honoring your limits so you can sustain what truly matters: your peace, your purpose, and your capacity to show up fully.
Therapy can be a powerful support in this process.
At Life By Design Therapy™, our holistic and somatic therapists help high-achieving professionals and caregivers in California recover from burnout, manage work stress, and restore nervous system balance.
With the help of our holistic and somatic therapists, you don’t have to force yourself to feel okay. With the right support, your nervous system can relearn how to feel safe, calm, and grounded again.
This Week's Affirmations
It’s okay if I don’t feel inspired every day; I can still move through the day with intention.
My worth is not defined by how much I achieve.
I trust my body to tell me when I need to slow down.
My boundaries are acts of care, not rejection.
I can care deeply about my work without losing myself in it.
Additional Resources
**If you’re interested in learning more about building resilience, check out these books below:
Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff
No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work by Liz Fosslien & Molly West Duffy
Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life by Jon Kabat-Zinn
The End of Burnout: Why Work Drains Us and How to Build Better Lives by Jonathan Malesic
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