If you are reading this article, I am guessing you are looking for a low-stress job. I get it! My last job totally wrecked me, so all I wanted to do was find a low-stress career for myself.
As a highly sensitive introvert, I get overstimulated pretty easily, and overthinking and stressing are second nature. Therefore it is so important to me to find a job that doesn’t stress me out. This way, I can perform well and thrive in my personal and professional life. Your job has a major influence on how you spend your personal time. At least it did to me.
When your job stresses you out every single day, this will totally deplete you. You won’t have energy left to spend with your family or enjoy some alone time. Especially if you are stressing yourself out in your free time worrying about what might happen the next day at work. You should be able to really let go of your job when you arrive home.
Creating a good work-life balance is easier said than done but when you have a job that doesn’t suck all the energy out of you, this can really help with that!
I have done a lot of research on what jobs would be a great fit for introverts, highly sensitive people, people with no high stress tolerance, etc. This blog post will talk about jobs that have little to no stress and would be great if you want a job just to be a source of income and not a major stressor in your life.
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What causes high stress in jobs?
Before we dive into the list of 8 great low-stress jobs, we must think about what is causing all this stress in jobs. These stress factors will also vary greatly between different individuals. Some people get stressed from working with people all the time while others experience more stress from tight deadlines or high targets to achieve.
High-stress
Let’s list a few things that can cause a lot of stress in the work environment.
- Tight deadlines
- Negative/anxious/angry clients/patients
- Emergencies
- Doing work you are not good at
- High-pressure work environment
- A lot of responsibilities
- Long workdays with little free time
- Constant human interactions (for introverts)
- Physical challenging job
- Toxic work environment, micro-managing boss, bullying co-workers
- Long commute
So yeah, there are a lot of things that can cause a job to be stressful! If you have any more things that I need to include on this list, let me know in the comments, please.
Low-stress
So what are the things we are looking for in a low-stress job then?
- Enough time to get the job done
- Nice coworkers and boss (no control over this really)
- Leaving work at work (work-life balance)
- Being good at most of your responsibilities and tasks
- Positive or neutral clients/patients
- Control over your workspace
- Work-from-home possibilities/short commute
- No or little client-facing tasks (for introverts)
- Enjoy the work you are doing
Let’s look into 8 great jobs that have most of these positive qualities and less of the negative ones.
8 Great Low-Stress Jobs
1. Librarian
If you like to spend most of your time reading books, this might be a job for you! Of course, while you are working you probably shouldn’t be reading the books, but most book lovers think that the library is a comforting and nice, quiet place to be in.
As a librarian, you work in an overall relaxed environment where quiet time is valued highly by visitors. No noisy environment for you! The job itself doesn’t have any real emergencies and most people take their time when visiting the library. The work pressure won’t be that high.
It’s not for extremely introverted introverts because you will have to interact with people every day. One part of the job is helping people to find the books they are looking for.
There are also a lot of parts that don’t require human interaction such as collecting and organizing books, performing audits, doing research on which books, films, or audio you need to buy to enlarge your collection, etc.
2. Dietitian
Dietitians are certified healthcare professionals who have great knowledge about everything nutrition and health-related. They work with clients to improve their health, change their weight, and motivate them to improve their quality of life through eating habits.
Dietitians can work in hospitals but also private practices. You can choose to specialize yourself by learning more in-depth about a specific client population. Examples of specialties can be children, elderly people, sports dietics, eating disorders, etc.
It’s a low-stress job because when you work in private practice and are self-employed, you can set your client times. You can take breaks in between clients if you need to. You help clients by giving them information and guidance but aren’t solely responsible for their outcome. It’s also a desk job, not physically demanding and you contribute to people’s health.
If you are interested in health sciences and maybe you are a foodie with a desire to help people, think about being a dietitian as your career!
3. Audiologist
Another medical/health-related job on this low-stress job list is an audiologist. I think medical jobs are very interesting but most of them come with a lot of responsibility and high stress levels and a lot of them also with negative patient contact.
When people need an audiologist, it can be for different problems related to the auditory system. The most common problems are hearing loss, tinnitus, and balance disorders. All of these things aren’t urgent so you won’t have to deal with emergency patients.
Audiologists do tests on the ears and auditory system to diagnose which problem needs treatment. They also provide treatment and guidance for patients with these types of problems. Helping people with their hearing issues can be very rewarding.
You have to have good interpersonal skills for this job as you will constantly be in contact with people, but the overall stress levels are low when you know what you are doing and get all the time you need to do a proper consultation. People also probably won’t fear coming to you in comparison to going to the dentist which is great because they will be happy that you can help them!
As an audiologist, you can work in a private practice, a hospital, or even in stores that sell hearing aids. I do think this job can become quite repetitive over time but if you like helping people and don’t want a lot of stress doing it, this might be good for you!
4. Blogger
The most introvert-friendly low-stress job on this list so far!
I just had to include a blogger in this low-stress job list! You can start blogging for fun or to make a little extra money on the side. However, the ultimate goal of a lot of bloggers would be to do this full-time over time.
For an introvert, this really can be a great career because you get to work for yourself, by yourself, from home, or even in a tropical location. It also doesn’t include calling or speaking to people all day long. You get to interact with your readers but in a way that is far more suitable for introverts than speaking directly to them face to face.
If you like to write, want to share your ideas and knowledge, and do some research to create great blog posts consistently, this can be a good career for you. You can help people from all over the world, teaching them more about topics that interest you and your readers and hopefully make a good profit.
Of course, making an income from blogging does not happen overnight, and for some people, it might never make a full-time income. Therefore I would recommend starting this as a side project while still working at your day job to pay your bills. If you can monetize your blog after some time, great! If not, try to find what is going wrong and try to fix it or try a different job.
You probably have a great writing portfolio established by now so you could try a career in freelance writing!
5. Data Analyst
Next up, data analyst. I think we are getting to the more introvert-friendly low-stress jobs on the list! Less human interaction in all of the following jobs.
As a data analyst, loving numbers and data is required. The good part of this job is that data aren’t people! Although you will have to work together in a team like in most jobs. If you have a fun team, this can only be good and otherwise, most of your time you can spend by yourself behind a computer.
Data analysts work with data, trying to find useful information for a company by analyzing the data they collect. You have to speak to the organization first to know which information they like to obtain, so this will require you to interact a little at first. After that, you can focus on collecting, organizing, and analyzing data so lots of alone time for you! Last but not least you will have to translate all the technical findings you did into comprehendible info to inform the organization you work for.
If you like to use your brain to analyze things and like to work with numbers on a computer, this might be the right career for you!
When you think that data analysis might be too difficult for you, or you want a job with absolutely no training related to this career, try data entry jobs! Data entry jobs are good entry-level jobs in the computer field that will allow you to spend time by yourself, entering data into a computer. A very low-stress job, but it does pay less than the job of a data analyst.
6. Web Developer
Another tech-savvy career on the list is web developer! Alternatively, software developers could also be on this low-stress job list but I chose to tell more about web development instead. Being a web developer is less abstract than being a software developer. Especially when you focus on the front-end side of web development.
Web developers build and maintain websites by using code, they often collaborate with graphic designers, UX/UI designers, and web designers. When having one of those careers, you will have more interaction with clients as they all create the design part of the website and need to listen to the wishes of the clients. As a web developer, you might also have this a little, but not as much.
Every business needs a website so there is a big request for web developers. There are three different types: front-end, back-end, and full-stack web development. Front-end focuses more on the visible side of the website while back-end is more behind-the-scenes work. Full-stack web developers can do both.
Some employers would want you to have a formal education but you can also learn this with online courses or by doing bootcamps! If you built a great portfolio and people need a web developer, you have an excellent chance of getting hired even without a degree.
A great low-stress career for computer and website lovers.
7. Administrative Assistant
Being an administrative assistant can be a medium or low-stress job depending on the boss you work for and the workload you get. It can be super chill if you have a manageable workload, doing paperwork, planning, and organizing things.
You don’t necessarily need a degree for every administrative assistant job. In most cases, you don’t. You have to know how to use basic computer programs like Microsoft programs and knowing multiple languages can also help.
If you like to do administrative work and have a good boss and nice colleagues this low-stress job is great! Depending on which sector you work as an administrative assistant, it will give you a higher workload. Some administrative assistants have a lot of human interaction, others don’t. If you are an introvert you might look for a job where you can work behind the scenes more often or maybe all the time.
As this is a desk job you can have regular working hours and leave work at work. If you choose an administrative assistant job in healthcare you must be aware of doctors running behind on schedule and working overtime. This job can feel more meaningful but it will also be more hectic than working for other businesses.
8. Laboratory Technician
Another science-themed low-stress job that made this list! If you loved the hard sciences while in high school, especially chemistry, you might like to be a lab technician.
A laboratory technician works in a laboratory and has no one-on-one human interaction, no talking to clients or patients all day, just you and your lab equipment. You follow strict protocols so most things will go as expected and emergencies hopefully won’t happen. If you are very clumsy, maybe you shouldn’t be handling dangerous chemicals.
You perform lab tests and analyze results. Every lab and every lab technician will have different tasks and responsibilities but most of the time you need a degree to be a lab tech so you will be capable of doing this job. You have to be good at doing precision tasks, being careful, and are good at following protocols.
If you like contributing your part to science, this can be it! This can be a low-stress job, except when COVID happened, but then all people who worked in healthcare jobs were drowning.
When you don’t like working in an office and don’t want client contact, this low-stress job can be great!
Low-Stress Jobs Do Exist!
You might be wondering if low-stress jobs really do exist. They do! Sometimes it just takes a while to find the right one for you. As for every person, a low-stress job will be a bit different.
Low-stress jobs that pay well aren’t that easy to find. Most of them require you to be a bit tech savvy as the tech industry generally pays well.
Tech jobs often can be learned through online courses, YouTube tutorials, boot camps, etc. If you are an autodidact who can easily learn something without a college education and are interested in technology and computer stuff, try to transform your career into a tech one. Create a good portfolio of all your work and apply for every tech position out there to get started!
Most jobs on this list require a degree. The jobs that don’t necessarily require a degree on this low-stress job list are administrative assistant, blogger, web developer, and maybe data analyst.
If you don’t want to learn a whole lot of new skills, maybe try being an administrative assistant for a while and see what it does to your stress levels.
I wish you the best of luck finding a low-stress job that works for you! 🙂