Stress Awareness Month 2024
Stress Awareness Month falls in April. It's used to help highlight ways that stress can impact people, and what people can do to help relieve stress for themselves and others.
Stress is a biological response to a perceived threat or problem. It's caused by chemicals and hormones (such as adrenalin and cortisol) surging throughout your body, preparing us to deal with the threat by taking action, running away/avoidance or by inaction/becoming stuck or numb. These are commonly known as the fight, flight or freeze responses.
Sometimes, a small amount of stress is not always a bad thing, it can help us to wake up in the morning, feel energised and motivated, complete tasks and deal with an emergency or problem. Stress can also be experienced around happy events such as a wedding.
But if the demands or pressure on us exceeds our own perceived ability to cope, we can experience negative stress. Most of us will feel stressed at times, and our bodies can deal with periodic or temporary periods of stress. Once we've passed the fight, flight.freeze moment, our heart rate and breathing should slow down and our muscles should relax. In a short time, our body should return to its natural state without any lasting negative effects.
However if we do not react well to stress and if stress is very intense or prolonged, without adequate recovery or relaxation afterwards or between stressful episodes, it can: negatively affect our physical health and mental wellbeing; increase the risk of anxiety and depression; and can worsen or be a trigger for other mental health conditions.
Common symptoms of stress include:
- Emotional symptoms: agitation, anxiety, low confidence and self-esteem, loneliness
- Physical symptoms: headaches, muscle tension and pain, digestive problems, fatigue, recurrent minor illnesses (as stress can lower our immune system function) and insomnia
- Cognitive symptoms: concentration and memory problems, muddled thinking, racing thoughts
- Behavioural changes: changes in eating and sleeping patterns, reduced interest in sex/libido, or using alcohol, cigarettes or drugs to cope.
Although certain stressors, such as life-threatening ones, we all find stressful, there are individual differences in other situations that people find stressful. For example, public speaking - some people love the thrill of it and others become paralyzed at the very thought. The amount of stress we feel can also be linked to: what else is going on in our lives – and our capacity to deal with this; our thoughts about the event/ situation; the importance we place on it; our beliefs about ourselves, how we are feeling emotionally; and our resilience.
So it is important to learn to recognise: what situations we find stressful; what signs in our body, feelings and behaviour indicate we are experiencing negative stress; and what methods/techniques help us to reduce stress and increase our resilience.
Although we often cannot control stressful events or situations (such as job loss, injury, bereavement, sudden work pressures/deadlines), we can develop some control over our reactions to it. This is important as if you think you cannot do anything about your problem, your stress can get worse. So the act of taking control is in itself empowering and it's a crucial part of finding a solution that helps you.
Managing stress
As a first step to managing or reducing stress, it can be helpful to identify your triggers and know what your capacity for managing stress is.
The 'Stress jug' analogy
We each have a certain capacity for managing stress (and this can differ between people and at different times in our lives). Imagine that all your stress was in a jug. The fuller your jug is, the greater the symptoms of your stress will be. Once the jug is full, your ability to manage any situation that arises is greatly compromised, resulting in feeling unable to manage something that would not normally affect you.
Some of your jug is already filled with the life stresses that we cannot avoid (for example, money, illness or family problems). If you partially empty your jug on a daily basis, you can avoid it over-flowing, which will help you reduce your symptoms and to feel more in control. It may be that you are unable to change the main contributor to your stress, but if you can do something about your other sources of stress, you will feel better able to cope. Mental Health UK provides a good visual example and worksheet and this video is a good summary.
Self-help tips for managing stress (or emptying the stress jug) includes two approaches.
Managing external pressures
- Make a list of things you need to do, identify your most productive time of day and start with the most urgent and important items. If needed, ask for help to prioritise them and see if some items can be pushed back to when you are feeling less stressed, or passed to other people to do
- Focus on one thing at a time and shut out distraction (like phone or email notifications)
- Take regular breaks, move around, get some fresh air - it will help your concentration
- Vary your activities, balancing those you find stressful with some easier ones and ones you enjoy
- Ask someone to help you with stressful or daily tasks to give you more time.
Developing internal resilience to help build up your skills to cope with stress
- Practice communicating your needs and setting boundaries. As this can help prevent your stress bucket overflowing and give you a sense of control, which can help reduce stress
- Try using mindfulness techniques – they can help you notice signs of stress earlier
- Breathing exercises and relaxation techniques can help reduce stress
- Doing some physical activity or exercise (especially outdoors in a green space or nature) can help reduce the stress hormones in your body and make you feel calmer and relaxed
- Give yourself a break, balance your time not just on stressful tasks but on things you enjoy. Creative activities use a different side of the brain and can reduce the stress hormones and increase endorphins or "happy" hormones
- Build your support network and make time for friends, family and colleagues. As social support is an effective way to reduce the effects of stress
- Reduce caffeine and sugar intake (as these can make you feel "more wired"). Try swapping them for decaffeinated or herbal teas, water and healthy snacks.
Useful contacts
- NHS Every Mind Matters has helpful support and information on dealing with stress and you can make a personalised action plan
- The NHS lists 10 Stress Busters
- The Mind website has information on 'How to manage stress', explaining what stress is, what may cause stress, how it can affect you and where you can access support
- Surrey Talking Therapies provide one to one, online and group support for people experiencing mild to moderate mental ill-health, including stress.