Despite stresses ... prayer can help

This is in the USA, but this storyMoney really can't buy happiness, study finds | Chicago Tribune tells us:
"TOP OCCUPATIONS IN JOB SATISFACTION
1. Clergy
2. Physical therapists
3. Firefighters
4. Education administrators
5. Painters, sculptors ..."
Worth looking at the specifically Christian comment here. The question they end up asking there is "Are the statistics about pastoral burn-out and depression inflated? Do we overstate the hardships of ministry as a perverse way to make us feel more noble and courageous for continuing? Or, are most of us actually experiencing deep contentment, pleasure, and spiritual satisfaction in our labors?"
I think, in as far as this might play out in the UK too, that clergy actually tend to feel keenly the difference between themselves and their parishioners when it comes to employment, not least because, ultimately, they are paid by these parishioners. One response to the tensions around this is to retreat into self-justification (which presents as emphasising hours worked and specifically to try to show value for money by having a list of achievements). However, the dark side of that can be sudden 'snaps' and depression when things are not such as to produce ready markers of worthwhileness. And yet the ability to set own hours and goals, to a large extent, and to be dealing with a sense of fulfilling vocation is known to be worth a lot in terms of working against stress. I suspect the sets of figures are both true, just of different people at different times and products specifically of the questions asked, I suspect.

It's also worth having a look at this report from the Church Times. One of the interesting things reported there was, "A study by the Revd Dr Kelvin Randall of 340 clerics from England and Wales found that the younger clerics burned out more quickly, and felt more depersonalised. One reason the researchers gave was that older clerics had learnt to pace themselves. The Church needed therefore to introduce “strategies to care for and support its younger clergy.”" and even more interestingly and perhaps not surprisingly (but it's nice to have it confirmed) "In another study, of 1278 male stipendiary Church of England clerics who had responded to the burnout surveys and to a prayer survey, those clerics who had a “positive” attitude to prayer did better than those who had not."