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Stress Awareness Month
- Harriet Renkin
- Mar 1, 2021
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 3, 2021
Life has become incredibly stressful, uncertain and challenging for us all as a result of COVID-19. Defined as a feeling of emotional strain and pressure, stress can occur acutely and chronically in individuals. We can experience stress in different areas of our life including, financial, health, family and workplace stress, all of which can interfere with our everyday lives.
Long-term stress can cause further mental health problems such as depression and anxiety. For this reason, it is important to understand what causes our stress and how we can create effective coping strategies to help us in the future.
Understanding Stress- The Stress Container
The Stress Container can help us understand how we experience stress and how to address our stress levels. Every individual copes with stress differently, which is why it is important to establish the stressors in your life and what coping strategies you have in place to manage them. Individuals who are more resilient tend you have better coping strategies and therefore experience less stress.
Write down all of the current stressors in your daily life and identify your current coping strategies for each stressor.
Ask yourself, are your coping strategies helpful or unhelpful for your health?
Helpful coping strategies: exercise, meditation, family and friend support
Unhelpful coping strategies: smoking, overeating, drug or alcohol abuse,
Five ways to manage stress:
There are a variety of helpful coping strategies we can use to help manage and reduce stress. Here are some examples:
Meditate/breathing: These types of exercises are great for relaxing the mind and body, releasing any tension or stress you may be experiencing. ‘Box breathing’ is a very easy breathing exercise you can practice anywhere; Inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, exhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds and repeat
Move more: regular exercise can boost your mood and reduce stress. Even going for a 30-minute walk has been shown to effectively reduce stress levels and counts towards your daily physical activity.
Create ‘ME’ time: schedule in some time every day to do something you enjoy. Hobbies can distract our mind from stress and give us an opportunity to reflect on how we can deal with future stressors.
Seek support and connect with others: talking to someone about stress you are feeling can make a huge difference. Just by offloading any concerns and knowing you have someone to talk to can be a useful coping strategy.
Make a plan of action: identifying regular/potential stressors and thinking of healthy coping strategies can help manage stressful situations in the future. Writing down stressors and creating a strategy next to it is a nice way of visualising your plan.
Helpful Websites:
If you would like to learn more about how to reduce and manage stress, take a look at these websites for some helpful recourses and information.
References:
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