MindKind

Your mental health hub. Find tips, tools and resources to manage stress, improve sleep, boost wellbeing and access support.

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Stress


There's a difference between pressure and stress though. Pressure can be positive and motivating, it can help us perform, thrive and achieve our goals.

Causes of stress

We experience stress when:

  • the demands in our life are greater than our ability to cope and we can't balance the demands and pressure placed on us, with our skills, knowledge and time.
  • we have too few demands, become bored, feel undervalued and lack recognition.
  • we have little or no say over the what and how we are working or living.

Lots of situations can cause us stress. It could be a major life event like divorce, bereavement and unemployment or it could also be a build-up of smaller problems.

The most common causes of stress are worries over work, money and relationships.

Stress affects nearly everyone at some point in our lives. Many people visit their GP experiencing common mental health problems, like anxiety and depression, which are a result of stress.

Physical symptoms of stress

Our bodies produce 'fight or flight' chemicals which prepare us to act in an emergency. When we are stressed our bodies think an emergency is coming, but in modern life we rarely need to actually fight or run away, so we don't use the chemicals up and they can cause uncomfortable physical, emotional and behavioural symptoms including: 

  • difficulty breathing
  • sweating
  • headaches
  • sickness
  • indigestion
  • fear
  • anger
  • frustration
  • depression
  • withdrawal
  • indecision
  • agression
  • inflexibility 

Stress isn't an illness, it is a state. However, if stress becomes excessive and prolonged, mental and physical illness may develop. For instance if you are stressed for a long period of time, you can put yourself at increased risk from a heart attack or stroke. The good news is, there are lots of ways we can help ourselves overcome stress.

Help for stress

  1. Recognise the problem, by making the connection between how we're feeling and the pressures we're facing. 
       
  2. Try to work out what's causing the stress. 
       
  3. Deal with any immediate problems and let go of things we can't do anything about. 
       
  4. In the longer term, we might need to review our lifestyle.

Things we can do when we're feeling stressed:

  • take time out, go for a walk or make yourself a hot drink.
  • talk to a friend, colleague or Mental Health First Aider.
  • learn how to relax - try deep breathing or sitting quietly.
  • eat a healthy diet and take regular exercise.
  • keep smoking and drinking to a minimum - they often make things worse in the long-run.
  • make time for yourself – plan to make sure you have enough time off to relax.
  • see resources and tools below for more ideas

Have a look at tools and resources to help you manage stress.

If you feel like you can't cope with the stress you're experiencing, contact your GP, speak to your manager or consider a self-referral to ThinkWell. 

It is important for all teams to have considered together the risks of stress related ill health in their work.

A team stress risk assessment is the most appropriate tool you can use to identify and consider the risk factors and decide the control measures you will need to take to manage these risks. 

Find out more about Team Stress Risk Assessment.

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