It’s time to attend to our whole selves at work. As a leader, you can create a culture of self-care to help your team prevent and manage stress, resulting in a more positive and productive workplace for everyone.

This means self-care—for you, and for your team. Self-care is your first defense in avoiding and reducing unnecessary stress.

It can be difficult to focus on the business of work when we have so much pressure in our personal and professional lives. If we take care of ourselves and each other, we can do greater things together. We can be greater together. We can bring vital energy into our work.

The better you take care of yourself (and the more you support your team members in taking care of themselves), the stronger you will be at work and at home. It is from this place that we can bring the mental, emotional and physical energy needed to do good work and create sustainable results.

16 Ideas for Self-Care in the Workplace

The time for stress reduction is before you feel stressed. Self-care is whatever contributes to your sense of wellbeing. Set up your environment to promote your self-care and that of your team. 

Here are 16 ideas to get you started: 

1. Have water and healthy snacks handy and easily accessible. 
2. Take time during meetings to stretch. 
3. Have walking meetings. 
4. Invest in standing desks for those team members who want to use them. 
5. Set up your personal and work environments to support your self-care routines.
6. Schedule time off for lunch.
7. Schedule time for self-care and support your team in doing the same. 
8. Take the stairs. 
9. Do jumping jacks or pushups when you break for lunch. 
10. Take a quick lap around the hall and invite a team member.
11. Start wellness campaigns or challenges to spread awareness and inspire.
12. Emphasize the importance of self-care in conversation with your team.
13. Offer access to meditation and movement classes.
14. Provide a wellness toolkit.
15. Promote a culture where work-life balance is encouraged and applauded. 
16. Make time to connect with your coworkers.

Here is a great resource focusing on wellness that you can use as you create your personal and workplace self-care plan.

Ultimately, reducing stress at work starts with you and your own self-care. The better you feel, the more energy you bring to work and to every aspect of your life. 

You set an important example for your team. Whether it’s encouraging vacations, exercising flexibility with deadlines to reduce stress, or simply taking a break between meetings to walk in the sun, you can model self-care and encourage it so your team will feel comfortable doing the same. 

When you create your own glow, everyone around you will shine!

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At The Human Priority, we believe in high collaboration, high trust, high respect. We believe in creating workplaces where you can have co-conversations and a sense of community. This is what creates the Workplace Fairytale! This is where people come together and do awesome, great, phenomenal things together. We can help you accomplish this! Learn more about our business consulting services.