by Sara Keller

Getting off the hamster wheel

After graduating from school, college or university, we enter unknown territory. We may have had a taste of what it's like to work during an internship or temporary job, but this time we are in for the full menu. As a newcomer, of course we want to prove ourselves, meet the requirements and establish our position and reputation in our field. Being ambitious often means that staying aware of our own resources isn't easy. In fact, we may slip into autopilot and get caught in what feels like a hamster wheel – racing through our working day at high speed as we sprint from client to client, shift to shift or task to task. Despite our fast pace, we are often treading water, which is exhausting for both the body and the mind. By the end of Monday, we are ready for the weekend. Sounds familiar?

All this pressure from outside and expectations from within can lead to us getting stuck in our hamster wheel, to the point where we no longer feel able to slow down or get off to catch our breath. Clearly, this is neither healthy nor sustainable – and who actually decided that we should all end up living out our ambitions on a hamster wheel?

In this article, we want to look at how we can avoid getting on the hamster wheel in the first place. Today's knowledge on the subject of work and health is helpful in this context, especially since it’s precisely there that the basic idea of prevention is rooted. Act today and not when it is too late: this mindset is key to our modern world of work, which is no longer a rigid system, but an environment that is open to change. For change to happen, your workplace requires creators like yourself who step up and slow down to actively shape a working environment that isn’t a hamster wheel, but a canvas for your individual career path.

Our personal resources are valuable – and they aren’t infinite. How can we balance work and our own life circumstances? Prevention might sound like a heavy word, but it carries great potential and can truly be of help. Incorporating prevention into our daily work routines protects us from burning out and offers the chance to use our personal resources in a way that preserves them in the long term. We can get to know our stressors and find a mindful way of dealing with them, not only at work, but in any life situation. No matter whether stress is miles away, knocking on your door or already taking up all the space on your couch and in your head.

What can prevention do?

The word prevention has become ingrained in everyone's life and vocabulary since the Corona pandemic. Whether in public debate or in the conference room, people often talk about how to take a "preventive" approach to any particular issue. For example, what can we do in advance to prevent disease? Although it might seem that prevention only benefits those in good health, this is not the case: prevention accomplishes a lot more and is, in fact, beneficial for everyone. How, you ask? A look at the following three categories will give you the answer..

Primary prevention

What keeps us healthy? Primary prevention refers to the active prevention of diseases. For example, the prevention of widespread conditions such as cardiovascular disease or mental health issues. One concrete preventive measure could be the introduction of short guided movement or relaxation breaks during working hours. This would allow participants to learn how to "switch off” from work and really recover during breaks.

Secondary prevention

How can we detect diseases at an early stage? Secondary prevention refers to the early detection of a disease in order to be able to treat it appropriately and effectively. Included are traditional preventive examinations, such as cancer screening, or regular appointments with the dentist.

Tertiary prevention

How do we get well again? The third type of prevention aims to alleviate the consequences of an illness, to avoid a deterioration of a patient’s condition or to prevent a full relapse. A typical example of such preventive measures is a visit to a rehabilitation facility.

Primary prevention plays a major role in the world of work. After all, why only act once we are already ill? If we ask ourselves this question, many follow-up questions arise, such as: What makes us sick? And here we immediately arrive at the next paramount topic, namely how we deal with stress.

Stress is an example of a health hazard where prevention can work wonders: it's basically your one-stop solution for coping with stressors. If stress is a long way off (though never completely gone), primary prevention is what you’re looking for. Is stress already on your doorstep? Then it’s time to take secondary prevention measures. And if stress is the ill-behaved roommate getting the better of you, there’s tertiary prevention to help you recover.

More prevention — less stress

Taking part in a prevention course is always a good idea, for you can only benefit from it – and this applies to all areas of your life. We will show you the benefits of active prevention using examples from the world of work and give you tips on how you can use it to deal with stress.

Prevent stress

No room for breaks in your schedule? Being able to switch off by taking breaks is more important than you might think, especially at work. It allows you to relax and gain momentary distance from whatever you are working on (while also creating space for creative ideas and solutions to pop up). Get in the habit of preventing stress in the first place. For example, take five minutes to do some calendar housekeeping and set yourself active break times.

Another way to prevent stress at work is to be mindful of your own limits. Consider this example: Physically, a marathon is achievable with a lot of training without getting sick. Yet you wouldn't run it every day, would you? A meeting marathon can be just as exhausting on a mental level and it's vital to be considerate of your needs. This can mean saying a clear no to a day full of meetings if that's what you need. So dedicate yourself to your schedule in a friendly but firm way and set yourself breaks and boundaries. In this way, you can consciously spread stressors and specifically plan recovery periods after long, exhausting meetings. Prevention can help you to get to know your own limits and make you mentally fit in case a meeting marathon ever does come up.

Recognising stress

We don't always succeed in preventing stress, so it is important to recognise when stress is imminent. In general, but also in everyday working life, you can monitor your body signals to do so. What are the signs that tell you when you are getting stressed? It can already help to just identify and acknowledge the signals, as it gives us the chance to take action as soon as our stress hormones start firing. A body scan, for example, can be a great tool to detect signs of stress, as it helps you to train your overall body awareness.

Dealing with stress

For many of us, stress is already an integral part of everyday life. Nevertheless, or precisely because of this, it’s not too late to start thinking about your own stress management. With a body scan, you train your perception and can then take effective action. For example, if you notice tensions in various parts of your body, you can release it with relaxation exercises. Over time, your body awareness will improve and you will be able to consciously notice when you are stressed simply by checking in with your body. In this way, you can react at an early stage and become more alert to what is stressing you out in a negative way.

In the end, stress affects us all. At work, it can drive us, but it can also burn us out. To prevent the latter, we have prevention in all its different facets as our go-to tool. But who should ultimately be responsible for it in the workplace?

Changing behaviour and conditions

Prevention on the job is not a one-way street: it is most effective when both employees and employers take action.

On the one hand, as employees we can always change our own behaviour. We can learn to recognise the signs of stress in ourselves and avoid their triggers. If you take the time now to take care of yourself and your health, you are sure to reap the rewards later. Better stress management simply pays off: It helps you find more balance, gives you more energy – and that's just the beginning. In the long run, you may be preventing stress-related illnesses. What's more, you may well be able to get part of your investment reimbursed by your health insurance company, because most of them have a prevention budget nowadays.

A company, on the other hand, has the ability to shape working conditions in such a way that they sustain and promote health. In fact, employers in most countries are legally obliged to take care of the health and safety of their employees: every workplace must be designed in such a way that hazards to life and health are avoided. Prevention in the workplace, which involves both the promotion of health and the prevention of illness, concerns mental and physical aspects in equal measure. There is a wide range of tried and tested measures for maintaining good employee health and well-being, the implementation of which can be adapted to meet a company’s particular needs.

Already, something is happening in the area of prevention in today’s world of work. The hamster wheel is changing – and so are the hamsters. We have the tools to take our wellbeing and health into our own hands, while companies can create the right environment for us to use these tools and make them part of our work routine. Changing our own behaviour in combination with adapted working conditions is what makes sustainable prevention not just a promise, but a reality. So let's join efforts and shape today’s working world – one that makes us healthy.

Sources: Bundesministerium für Gesundheit (2019). Prävention. Bundesministerium für Justiz (2022). Arbeitsschutzgesetz.

Pictures: Mikhail Nilov auf Pexels