"it’s become a badge of honour for women”: Expert reveals signs of stress addiction in the workplace

Mandy, founder of Next Generation Women and a former commercial real estate lawyer, left the profession in 2010. After two decades of pressure and heavy expectations from corporate colleagues, she has spent the years since working with firms and individuals who are still trapped in the cycle, with a focus on helping women.

"In high-performance careers, the first answer to 'how are you?' is always ‘busy,’ she said. “People won’t and don’t openly admit to being stressed, hiding behind the badge of being ‘good and busy’.

"Being busy has become shorthand for: I matter, I am committed, I am doing enough; and nobody questions it, because we have decided that being overwhelmed is the same thing as being valuable."

Since 2010, Mandy has worked with women in the industry and other professions suffering the effects of chronic stress and career burnout. For Stress Awareness Month 2026, she is encouraging women to have conversations with colleagues about the impact stress is really having on them, and challenge the notion that stress should be worn as a ‘badge of honour’ in the workplace.

Mandy also added that women who deal with stress effectively often find themselves marginalised. "There is no space in this conversation for the woman who has actually found her footing," she added.

"That worker who has set her boundaries, who is rested, who is not white-knuckle riding her way through the week. She gets no credit for that and, if anything, she is a suspect. Why isn’t she stressed? Is she not working hard enough?”

The data shows how badly the profession needs a different conversation. Work-related mental health issues cost the UK economy over £57 billion a year. A significant portion comes from presenteeism: turning up while unwell because stepping back feels more dangerous than staying put.

Mandy argues that these numbers will not shift while the culture treats stress as a virtue. She added: "Talking about stress is not the same as recovering from it. In the sessions I run with firms, women tell me they are desperate for permission to take a break but are concerned about how that effects their reputation in the office.”

Her response is not a stress management programme. She calls it prescribing rest and recovery: the idea that rest should be built into how women work, handed out when they have earned it. Central to Mandy’s work is the creation of safe spaces for honest conversations between women.

Alongside honest conversation, Mandy advocates for gratitude practice – a practical tool for breaking the grip of a workload that always feels unfinished, rather than a wellness exercise to be slotted around everything else.

"When you practice noticing what is working, you change the lens," she said. "But it only works if you are willing to take ownership of not being stressed. To stop treating your own exhaustion as the proof that you care."

Mandy is hosting a breakfast panel on Wednesday 6 May at Revolución de Cuba in Birmingham, from 08:30 to 10:30am, as part of the Next Generation Women series. More than 100 women in the legal sector have already come through its events.

"The goal is not to manage stress better," she said. "It is to stop performing it."