In this summer podcast series, each week the New Zealand Herald and Newstalk ZB's Go to Health podcast will look at a different health issue. Today, it's the effect of modern work expectations on our mental health. Hosted by Frances Cook.

It's all too easy to slip into the habit of working harder and harder, drawing your sense of worth and accomplishment from dealing with an increasing amount of pressure in your job.

But it's a balancing act that can only go for so long before something has to give. An increasing number of New Zealanders are now facing exactly that problem.

Last year's Wellness in the Workplace survey, put together by Southern Cross and Business NZ, has documented a spike in workplace stress levels over the last two years.

The biggest factor for the people they surveyed was being overloaded, with just too much to do.

A recent survey by Seek also backs this up, finding one in three Kiwis feel stressed out from their job, and can't stop themselves bringing work home at the end of the day.

Our working life is a huge part of how we spend our life in general, so maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that if you keep this up for too long, there can be pretty serious consequences.

I called Helena Cooper-Thomas, organisational behaviour professor at AUT, for the latest episode of the Go to Health podcast.

We talked about whether people are more stressed by work than they were in the past, signs of stress, and how to deal with it.

For the interview, listen to the podcast.

If you have a question about this podcast, or an idea for the next one, come and talk to me about it. I'm on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/FrancesCookJournalist/ Instagram here https://www.instagram.com/franklysnapping/ and Twitter here https://twitter.com/FrancesCook.