How do you stop a stressful job from taking over your mind outside of working hours?

I have struggled with this a lot, actually. It's very difficult if your job is so stressful while you're in the environment, sometimes it transfers to your home environment, with people calling or texting you, or just the events of the day resonating. I think the fact that we DON'T want to deal with it, makes it more stressful. Here's what I've started doing, and it takes a lot of practice too. 1. I take a little bit of time to reflect on what happened throughout the work day. A set amount of time to identify the peaks and pitfalls of the day. 2. I give thanks for the day's high points, out loud or silently in my mind, or I will even write them down. 3. Once I get home, or get to school, I take a little bit of time before starting my next task, to do something calming or something that makes me feel good. If I'm at home, I'll take an hour or so. If I'm at school, of course it will be a little less time because I have to go to class. 4. Sometimes I'll even say to myself when I get to the door, that the problems of the day can't follow me inside. It sounds silly, but sometimes that's what it takes in order to train your mind. 5. If it's not a busy school night, I'll take a few deep breaths, calm myself, and go to the gym and work out as hard as I possibly can, maybe push my limits a bit. This really helps me get my frustrations out. During the day, I'll think about what I get to do once I leave, and make it something to look forward to, even if it's continuing my netflix marathon. I still have my days when it's crazy hard to let go of my work stress, but in my case, I have had worse jobs. So when all else fails, I'll say to myself that at least I'm not in the place I was in before.

i have lived such a situation in three different companies. The best way I found for taking work off my mind was sport. Everyday i use the lunch break to do some sport (running, bycicle, tennis...) If i have no time in lunch break, i do sport just after work. And then, once at home, when everybody is sleeping, i do some stretching with nice classic music, combined with some meditation exercises. This makes me have a good sleep

If you're working long hours and really stressed out about it, consider talking to your boss about taking some time off. A mental break is necessary now and again from work. Also, make sure you are exercising and taking care of things in your personal life so you aren't thinking about work all the time!

Find healthy ways to take your mind off of work when you aren't at work. Talk to people about it because you never know, someone will understand how you are feeling and may be able to help you. Just getting it off your chest will probably help you feel a lot better.

Try writing things down to help you put things out of your thoughts and in a piece of paper. This is a temporary break and you will feel relieved as you have written it down.

From personal experience, getting your mind off the stress of work can be challenging even outside working hours. But it gets easier once you set your mind into trying to leave all queries and work stress at work once you get out of your workplace and vice versa, leave your personal problems once you leave home for work so you can maintain a good balance and performance and take each thing at once. Hobbies after work my do the trick: Biking, hiking in nature, exercising, music, meditation, cooking your favorite meal or simply talking to a good friend, all are good ways to refresh the mind into thinking more widely than the problem itself. When you focus only on the problem, you can't always see the solution but some distraction sometimes helps in refreshing the mind to think outside the box and eventually see new options and get the energy again to start a new day! Hope that was helpful.

The most important thing is to find time for yourself. Surround yourself with activities that make you happy and that can keep your mind off all the work that is waiting for you.

Always remember that when at work, you are not allowed to deal with personal calls, because it is not related. Same applies when you are at home, work is for your shift, not afterwards. Find something that you enjoy doing, or that you find relaxing and make sure that you do it whenever you are not working. I sometimes use the time travelling to work as my time to get myself prepared for the day, get myself in the mindset. At the end of a shift, I take the time on the way home to forget what has happened that day and focus on my home life, because there is nothing I can do anyway until the next morning. If it is stressful, try to organise rather than overload. So for example, assess what you have to do, and assess the time it will take to do each task, don't try to get it all done, because it may be too much, so set piles of tasks that you will do each day to ensure that the targets are met but you aren't overloaded.

Keep strict boundaries as much as possible. Try not to work at home, and if you do, only work for designated times and in an area of your home that you don't typically relax in. Before bed each night, dedicate the last 30 minutes of your day doing something relaxing that is only for you and only your time, like reading for fun, meditating, taking a warm bath, whatever you like as long as it's not a chore or work or school-related. Do it EVERY night, regardless of how much there is to do. as a wise boss once told me, "don't worry, there will always be more work for you tomorrow, so why rush it?"

Leave anything work related at work! If you don't get paid to work 24/7 don't do it. Always try to plan for something to look forward to!