964,000 People: But Stress Doesn't Begin With a Statistic
- Francesca Saunders
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
964,000.
That is the estimated number of workers who experienced work-related stress, depression or anxiety in Great Britain in 2024/25 and
22.1 million working days were lost because of it.
Those are significant numbers, they tell us something important about the scale of work-related stress and its impact on individuals, teams, services and organisations. However, there is another part of the story that interests me just as much.
What happens before someone becomes part of the statistic?
Before the sickness absence.
Before the burnout.
Before the performance starts to change.
Before someone reaches the point where they finally say: "I can't keep doing this."
Because stress does not always announce itself loudly, sometimes, stress whispers.
Stress can build while you are still functioning
One of the difficulties with stress is that people can continue functioning remarkably well while pressure is building.
You still go to work.
You still attend the meetings.
You still care for patients, children, families, colleagues or the people who depend on your service.
You still answer the emails.
You still meet deadlines.
You still make decisions.
You might even still be the person everybody else turns to when something goes wrong.
From the outside, you appear to be coping, but internally, something may be changing.
You stop taking your break because there is too much to do.
You work a little later.
You check your emails when you should have finished for the day.
You become more irritable or impatient.
You find it harder to switch off.
You stop doing the things that normally restore your energy.
You wake up thinking about work.
Sunday evening begins to feel different.
You tell yourself: "I'm fine, I'm just busy."
Oh and because you are still functioning, nobody necessarily notices.
Perhaps you don't notice either.
High functioning does not always mean healthy functioning
This is particularly important for people working in demanding professions such as health, social care and education, where HSE figures show rates of work-related stress, depression or anxiety above the average across all industries.
These are professions where people are often expected to manage pressure as part of the job.
Nurses keep caring.
Social workers keep assessing risk and making decision making.
Teachers keep teaching.
Managers keep supporting their teams.
Leaders keep leading.
People become very skilled at continuing.
Experience, professionalism and commitment can help us manage enormous amounts of pressure, but there is an important distinction:
Being able to keep going does not necessarily mean that continuing in the same way is sustainable.
Sometimes competence allows us to carry too much for too long.
What disappears first when you are under pressure?
One of the simplest ways to recognise increasing stress is to notice what starts disappearing from your life.
For some people, it is their lunch break.
For someone else, it is exercise.
It might be sleep, patience, humour, concentration, socialising, cooking, reading, walking, hobbies or simply having a little time where nobody needs anything from you.
Often, these changes seem too small to matter.
"I'll skip lunch today."
"I'll finish this tonight."
"I'll cancel that walk."
"I'll answer one more email."
Individually, these decisions may not be significant, but when they become a pattern, they can tell us something. The things that restore us are gradually being replaced by the things that drain us.
That is why noticing yourself matters.
Try noticing yourself earlier
Instead of waiting until stress becomes overwhelming, ask yourself:
What am I doing differently because I'm under pressure?
What have I stopped doing?
What am I tolerating that I wouldn't normally tolerate?
What is my body telling me?
Am I sleeping differently?
Am I becoming more impatient, withdrawn or emotional?
What would someone who knows me well notice about me at the moment?
And perhaps one of the most important questions:
What is it costing me to keep coping like this?
This isn't about diagnosing yourself; it is about awareness, because we cannot respond to signs that we continually ignore.
Mind the GAP
This is one of the reasons I talk about Mind the GAP, Grow, be Aware, Prepare.
G, Grow
Grow your knowledge of stress.
Understand your own patterns.
Learn what pressure looks like for you, rather than waiting for it to look like somebody else's version of stress.
A, be Aware
Notice what is changing.
Notice your body.
Notice your thoughts.
Notice your behaviour.
Notice what you have stopped doing.
Notice the gap between what you are continually giving and what you are getting back.
P, Prepare
Don't wait until you are overwhelmed to decide what might help.
Know what restores you.
Know who you can talk to.
Protect some boundaries.
Use the support available to you.
Create small habits that help you recover during ordinary working weeks, not just when you eventually reach annual leave.
Preparation gives us choices before pressure becomes crisis.
Small interventions can matter
Self-care is sometimes presented as something additional that busy people need to fit into an already overcrowded day.
I see it differently. Self-care can begin with 30 seconds of awareness.
Stop.
Take a breath.
Unclench your jaw.
Drop your shoulders.
Put your feet on the floor.
Step away from the screen.
Drink the water that has been sitting beside you.
Walk outside for two minutes.
Say no to something that does not genuinely need to happen today.
Ask for help.
Take the break you were about to skip.
None of these actions will solve excessive workloads, unsafe staffing, poor organisational cultures or systemic pressures.
Those issues require organisational action and leadership responsibility.
But small actions can help us notice ourselves before we disappear underneath the demands being placed upon us.
This isn't only an individual responsibility
There is another important part of this conversation. We should not talk about workplace stress as though it is simply the individual's responsibility to become better at coping with unreasonable demands.
Organisations have responsibilities too.
Leaders and managers can ask:
What pressures are our people continually absorbing?
What behaviours are we unintentionally rewarding?
Do we praise the person who never takes a break?
Do we rely heavily on the person who always says yes?
Do we notice when our most experienced staff are quietly carrying more and more?
Do people feel psychologically safe enough to say:
"I'm struggling."
Or:
"I haven't got the capacity to take that on."
Or even:
"I need some help."
Preventing stress from escalating requires both personal awareness and organisational awareness.
Don't wait until the work stops
The figure 964,000 represents people.
People with families.
People with careers.
People with experience and knowledge.
People who care about what they do.
People who may have continued performing for months while their capacity was quietly reducing.
That is why our conversations about workplace stress need to start earlier.
Not only when someone is absent.
Not only when performance declines.
Not only when somebody reaches burnout.
But while they are still there.
Still functioning.
Still contributing.
Still saying: "I'm fine, I'm just busy."
Perhaps today is a good opportunity to ask yourself:
What is my stress score today, from 1 to 10?
Then ask a second question:
Why isn't it lower?
Your answer might tell you something worth paying attention to.
Stress is inevitable. Staying overwhelmed does not have to be.
Notice yourself.
Notice each other.
Mind the GAP, Grow, be Aware, Prepare.
And do something while small changes can still make a difference.
Don't wait until the work stops to recognise that the person doing it was struggling.
Useful resource
The Health and Safety Executive provides further information about work-related stress, its impact and the importance of recognising and managing it.
HSE, Understanding the impact of stress at work
Make your Self-care Inevitable!
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