Having a good relationship with coworkers is in general great in my opinion and talking about personal life, politics and religion can be avoided with for example:

• “I’m not that into politics”
• “sorry, I don’t like talking about religion”
• “Sorry, that’s a part I like to keep private” Also always steer conversations towards work topics and problems.

Then there are ways to differently stop conversations like

• "Sorry, I’m feeling tired today" < all nurses should relate
• "Sorry, I’m not in the mood for talking right now"

Then there’s the general fact that often you don’t really don’t have to say anything as long as you listen and ask exploratory questions. I’m autistic and can barely keep a conversation going but this goes pretty well for me without a lot of effort. Just say stuff like:

• “So you’re saying that [literally rephrasing their point]”
• “So does that mean that…”
• “That must have been tricky”
• “That sounds hard/tricky/difficult”
• “Did you manage?”
• “So what did you do/end up doing?”
• “That sucks”

And if they somehow end up being sad and almost crying which happens more often than I’d like to admit you can just say “That sucks” put a hand on their shoulder and wait.

Another option would be to invite them to silence like:

• “I’m spent, do you want to sit over there, relax and eat in silence?”

People are sometimes uncomfortable with silence but not as much when it’s on purpose.

It’s just conversation lubricant. If you feel like the conversation is interesting then “Have you thought about doing X?”. I can’t stress enough how much people will like you by just doing this even if half the time you don’t say anything.