Stress

What is stress?

Everyone experiences stress at some point.

Life can be busy and confusing and sometimes things start to build up. Stress is the body’s reaction to feeling overwhelmed by problems or pressure and it can trigger the ‘fight or flight’ response feelings of anxiety.

If someone you care about is displaying signs of stress, there are lots of different things that could have triggered it. It might be looking for work, trying to balance looking after children and their job, money worries, living in an area where they don’t feel safe, or trying to live up to how someone thinks their life should be.

What are the effects of stress?

A little bit of stress can be helpful; it can improve your concentration and give you short term energy to achieve a goal e.g. completing a big task for a deadline at work, or organising a big event.  However, too much stress or feeling stress for weeks and months at a time can cause problems such as:

• difficulty sleeping
• feeling anxious or tense
• struggling to concentrate
• feeling irritable or angry
• headaches
• not enjoying things anymore

Dr Julie Smith shows how stress can overwhelm us, but how quickly we can turn things around when we put the right things in place:

Top tips for supporting someone you care about to reduce their stress:

• Try to be supportive and not to put pressure on them.
• Help them to problem solve any practical difficulties they are facing.
• Offer to help them to get organised e.g. to make a timetable of what they need to do and when they will do it.
• Encourage them to get plenty of sleep and eat well.
• Encourage them to take regular breaks and get exercise outside.
• Practise relaxation or mindfulness exercises together.
• Help them recognise their achievements.

If someone you care about is struggling to cope with their stress, visit the support links in the ‘get help now’ section below.