To increase the understanding of how individuals total life situation affects their stress level and health has lately more frequently been discussed in different contexts. Furthermore, it is important to have knowledge of power structures that exist under given circumstances in a society to get an increased understanding of how to structure the health promoting work to get the highest possible benefits. People’s work life is essential to their health, since we spend a lot of time at work. The aim of this study was to find out which factors that relate to nursing staff’s health and stress level from a general perspective. Furthermore, which thoughts nursing staff have about improvements of their work and life situation. The intention is that the result can be used as inspiration in the health promoting work within nursing staff workplaces. The method that was used was a quantitative cross-sectional study with a structured questionnaire that also consisted of open questions that gave the respondents the opportunity to give their own thoughts and explanations. In total 118 individuals answered, a response rate of 47 %. The answers were analysed with the statistical software SPSS. The results showed that the most important factors that related to the respondents’ health in a positive way were supportive fellow-workers, high self-esteem and high possibilities of influence at the workplace. The factor that related to low stress level was high age. There were many suggestions of what the employer could do to enable the staff to better combine private life and work life. The most common suggestions were that they wanted to be able to influence their working schedule more and that the employer had a more flexible attitude regarding vacation. To increase the understanding of what affects nursing staffs´ health in both work life and private life, when the total work burden in peoples´ lives is considered, has great relevance to public health science. To achieve this, both a gender and a class perspective must be considered.