What is stress?
Stress is the feeling of being under too much mental or emotional pressure, which you are unable to cope with. People react to stress in different ways, what some people feel stressful about may be a motivation to another. Stress can affect how you think, feel, behave and how the entire body works. Being under pressure is a normal part of life. Sometimes, stress can be a useful drive that helps you to take action, feel more energised and get results.
If you become overwhelmed by stress, then the feeling could be a problem. Stress is not a psychiatric diagnosis, but it is closely linked to your mental health either stress causing mental health problems or mental health problems causing stress which can start to feel like vicious circle and it might be hard to see where stress ends and your mental health problems begins.
What are the signs of stress?
There are some of the typical signs of stress and these signs can be physical, psychological and behavioural. Lets look at these signs of stress:
You might find that your first clues about being stressed are physical signs, which are: Tiredness, a tight chest, indigestion, headaches, appetite and weight changes also joint and back pain, shallow breathing or hyperventilating, panic attack, blurred eyesight or sore eyes, problem getting to sleep, high blood pressure, constipation or diarrhoea.
Psychological signs:
Anxiety, tearfulness, feeling low, mood changes, indecision, loss of motivation, increased sensitivity and low esteem, neglected or lonely, depressed, uninterested in life, worried about your health, unable to enjoy yourself.
Behavioural signs:
Increased smoking and drinking, withdrawal or aggression, lateness, recklessness and difficulty concentrating, finding it hard to make certain decisions, snapping at people, biting your nails, eating too much or too little, feeling tearful or crying.
What causes stress?
Feelings of stress are normally triggered by something happening in your life, these feelings can involve:
- Being under lots of pressure
- Facing big changes
- Worrying about something
- Not having control over the outcome of a situation
- Having overwhelming responsibilities
- Having work problems, activities or changes in your life
- Having too much or too little work to do
- Work that is too difficult to do
- The pressure of deadline
- Physically demanding work
- Lack of control over what you do and how you do it
- Poor working condition
- Poor communication from your employer about changes
- Unclear expectations and conflict ting messages
- Lack of managerial support
There are certain things in your life that you cannot control, however, there are still lots of practical things you can do to manage the amount of pressure on daily basis. Here are some few on how to manage your stress:
Identify you triggers
Try to know what triggers your stress is important, this will help you prepare for the problems and think of ways to solve them, even if you cannot avoid these situations, and being prepared can help.
Organise your time
By making some adjustments to the way you organise your time could help you feel more in control of any tasks and more able to handle the pressure and you can do that by:
Identify your best time of day and do the most important tasks that need the most energy and concentration.
Make a list of things you have to do, arrange them in order of importance and try to focus on the most urgent first.
Vary your activities, balance interesting tasks with the routine ones, and stressful tasks with those you find easier or can do calmly.
Try not to do too much at once, if you take too much, you might find it harder.
Take breaks and take things slowly, it might be difficult to do this when you are stressed, but it can make you more productive.
Address some of the cause of stress
There might be lots of things in your life that you cannot do anything about, still be some practical ways you could to improve some of the issue that are putting pressure on you, by doing this, it will let you handle things without pressure.
Accept the things you cannot change
By accepting that there are certain things you cannot possibly do anything about will help you focus your time and energy productively.
Advice
Taking steps to look after your wellbeing can help you deal with pressure and reduced the impact that stress has on your life.
Here are some steps to help you; also prevent you from developing some long-term conditions as a result of stress:
Make some lifestyles changes could help you feel more able to cope with pressure and stressful situations for example use relaxation techniques, try to develop interests and hobbies.
Look after your physical health, this can help you to manage stress and lessen the impact on your overall mental health for example, get good sleep, be more physically active, eat healthy.
Give yourself a break can help you control the amount of pressure you feel in different situations, which can help you feel less stressed such as go on holidays, don’t be too hard on yourself.
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