Author: Jo

How do I parent my teen through tough times

Dr Jo Prendergast and her Cancer and Cartwheels

Why recovery works best when it’s built in

Across this series I’ve talked a lot about recovery: settling the nervous system, processing stress rather than suppressing, giving the body its signal that the pressure has passed. There’s an obvious objection, and it’s a fair one. If recovery depends on each individual being disciplined about it, it may tend to fail. People are busy, […]

Recovery is hardest when we need it most

If a forest is on fire, it needs water to put it out, not a helicopter dumping fuel onto the flames. So why can we not rest and recover when we are exhausted by our work. After a punishing week, we need to switch off, but instead the work follows us home in our heads. […]

How stress spreads through teams

Have you ever driven a boat fast across the water, focused on getting somewhere, not thinking at all about what you’re leaving behind you? Then you look back and see a huge wake rolling out behind the boat, big enough to rock every smaller craft nearby. We don’t feel our own wake. But our wake […]

Your nervous system needs a signal to settle

Our bodies stress response was built for a different world. We’re biologically designed to escape from sabre-toothed cats: cortisol spikes, adrenaline spikes, we run to safety, and then we settle over a tasty roast mammoth, back in the safety of the cave. The threat ends, the body gets a clear signal that the danger has […]

What the healthiest workplaces do differently

After thirty years of clinical work, I’ve heard about a lot of workplaces from the inside. The healthiest ones are not the ones with the best wellbeing app or the most yoga vouchers. They tend to have other things in common. Senior people model emotional honesty. Somewhere near the top, a leader can say in […]

Resilience isn’t pushing through

We’ve spent decades telling employees to be more resilient, and burnout rates continue to climb. Maybe the problem isn’t the amount of resilience. Maybe it’s the definition. The working definition in most workplaces is some version of pushing through: absorb more, complain less, keep going. By that definition, the most resilient person is the one […]

Your best staff could be the ones most at risk of burnout

Ask a manager who on their team they’re worried about in terms of burnout, and they’ll often name the person who’s visibly struggling: missing deadlines, calling in sick, snapping in meetings. As a psychiatrist, I’d ask about someone else entirely. The one who never complains, never misses a day, always says yes. They may be […]

“I’m fine” is a burnout risk factor

Have you ever said, “I’m fine” while clearly not being “fine”? There’s solid research on what saying “I’m fine” while feeling otherwise actually does to us. In mental health we call it expressive suppression: hiding the outward expression of an emotion you’re already feeling. Unfortunately, suppression doesn’t change the emotion. It only hides it. The […]