This Wednesday November 6th is National Stress Awareness Day. This day gives people the opportunity to reflect on their lives and whether external factors are causing them to feel stressed and how best to combat this. Everyone feels stress from time to time, whether that is due to work, home life, illness or life changes, but when these stresses become more prominent in a person’s life, this is when they can cause more serious mental health problems.
There are many strategies that can be used to reduce stress and different things work for different people.
A useful way to deal with stress is to identify exactly which things cause you the most distress and to understand whether they are issues that arise regularly, a one-off event which will pass or an ongoing stressful experience. Identifying where stress is coming from will help you to assess the best way to cope with it. For example, stresses that occur regularly can be combated by improving organisation of your time and resources in order to reduce the panic when something unexpected arises such as a bill.
Another way to reduce stress is to make time with your friends or family. Sometimes when we’re stressed, we feel as if there is not enough time in the day and this makes that stress intensify. Taking some time out to spend time with a friend or family member, even over the phone can help reduce stress. Laughing and smiling helps produce hormones that help you relax further too.
By looking after your physical health, your mental health is also being taken care of. Exercise is a fantastic stress reliever and a great way to utilise any tension into something positive.
Although stress isn’t a medical diagnosis, there are certain treatments that can help if you are noticing the signs of stress or struggling to cope with areas in your life. One of these treatments is talking therapies or counselling.
Counselling provides a non-judgemental third party to listen to your thoughts and help you better understand how to combat stressful situations.
Cognitive Behavioural therapy is another talking therapy which is more practical, by helping you understand your thought patterns and how they relate to your behaviours in order to improve how you feel and how you react to future stressful situations.
If you feel that Stress is affecting your life, The Eaves has over 100 fully qualified counsellors, psychologists and CBT therapists with immediate availability.
If you would like to book an appointment, please use the search function at the top of the page or call 01483 917000 and one of our referrals team would be happy to source someone for you.
References
https://www.mind.org.uk/workplace/national-stress-awareness-day/