STRESS AWARENESS WEEK

Stress Awareness Month has been held every April since 1992 to raise awareness of the causes and cures for our modern-day stress epidemic.

GAIN for Wellbeing will be using the last week of April to run Stress Awareness Week and create an opportunity for an open conversation on the impact of stress. This dedicated time hopes to remove the guilt, shame, and stigma around mental health. Talk about stress and its effects and discuss our mental and emotional state with friends, families, colleagues, and professionals.

As part of these efforts, Liam Nixon, customer host at Hatch End, shares how he manages stress inside and outside of work.

1.  How do you predict what challenges you may face during your week?

Setting yourself up for challenges for the week ahead is different every week; a lot of it goes down to what happened the week before during your shift or others. If you've had a good week, you're ready to go, but a bad week typically leads to a negative mindset before you start thinking about what will happen! Sometimes the weather can play a massive part in the mental challenge of coming to work. If it's cold and wet, I don't want to get out of the house, but if the sun comes out, it generally puts you in a better mood!

2. What do you do to prepare for challenges inside and outside of work?

Depending on the challenge, music usually gets me going and can also set me ahead of a challenge. Outside, I work, I play sports when I can, and music is the most important thing when travelling to a game. I must seem like the most unsocial person travelling to a match as it's a case of music on and getting ready for the challenge ahead. On the other hand, when it comes to a challenge at work, I always think one step ahead where possible. For example, seeing a train is delayed, and it keeps getting later and later, you see the emails from control. Still, you start to use experience; the train running 10 minutes late keeps going up, you know it's a 90% chance it will run fast and miss your station, and you'll get the customer blaming you. Still, the sooner you can work out what will happen to deal with angry customers, informing them and being open makes it easier not just for myself but the customers also seem to give you fewer headaches.

3.  How do you continue performing when you are faced with problems at work?

Working on the front line, you always come across problems at work. If that be something small and simple like reporting a machine or an ill passenger. The best thing to do is know your stuff at work. If something goes down, is it a simple reset I need to do to make it back up and running again, or do I need to report it to get someone to come out and have a look at the issue? The more extreme side of ill passengers is knowing how to deal with it; what procedures must I follow? Do I need to inform control or a signaler, as it's close to the track? Do I need to call 999 for help? Knowing how to deal with things while at work and the correct process makes it easier to perform after the event. Or I can call a colleague on duty to see what they suggest.   

4. How do you recover from a stressful day or the burn out you may feel after overcoming challenges?

How I deal with stressful days is different every time; a lot of this goes down to what type of stress it is. Was it just "one of those days", or was it stress from passengers due to trains being cancelled? Maybe one thing went wrong and everything followed. I usually listen to music or gaming online with friends to relax and take my mind off the day. With burnout, it depends again on what type it is. Am I burning out due to a long work week or overworking?

5.  Do you have any general advice on how you build resilience either inside or outside work and manage stress?

Don't allow others to wind you up and burn you out. If you need to step back, take a deep breath, and go again. We all have deadlines to hit but don't allow them to burn you out, don't be scared to speak if you are struggling; it doesn't mean you're bad at what you're doing.