of a problem, you have a better chance of tackling it. But other stress is not doing you any favours. It makes you feel uptight and anxious, and it doesn’t leave you alone. Of course, different people feel stressed in different situations.The most common causes of stress are: • work • tertiary studies • relationships • certain times, such as Christmas & holidays You may feel stress having an impact on your body (rapid heartbeat, sweating, faster breathing, difficulty with digestion) and your mind (negative thoughts such as ‘my blood is boiling’, ‘she is a pain in the neck’, ‘I hate this job’, ‘I’ve had enough’ or ‘I can’t believe what’s happening’). It might also be affecting your everyday life (perhaps you’re arguing more with your family, or you dread going to work). While each of us reacts to stress in different ways, it’s important to deal with any stress that is affecting your health and wellbeing. In other words, if you’re not bothered by long work hours, then that’s fine. But if a work overload is making you lose sleep, feel impatient with your family, or behave in other unwanted ways, then you need to make a change. STRESS CAN HURT YOUR BODY AND YOUR MIND Think about whether stress is hurting you: • Is stress affecting your physical health? Is it giving you tension headaches or migraines, messing up your digestion, or leading you to eat or drink more, or smoke? • Is stress affecting your mental health? Is it bringing on panic attacks, making you fearful, causing irritability, leading you to binge eat or starve yourself, making you struggle in relationships, or making you feel depressed? Here are more questions that may help you recognise stress: • Can you switch off when you want to rest? Or can you not stop thinking? • Are you coping? Or do little things get
EELING STRESSED? HERE, you’ll find plenty of tips to help plan for feeling better. First, let’s learn more about stress. It’s a natural response when you face a difficult or dangerous situation, or when you feel pressured to do or feel something. Stress is part of life, and it may even help you feel more alert or capable. But it can also feel overwhelming. In this case, your health, wellbeing, relationships, work and enjoyment of life can suffer. You may be feeling big stresses, such as money worries, the loss of someone you love, or a marriage breakdown. Or you may be feeling F
smaller stresses, such as a constantly ringing phone, a long trip to work every day, or a grumpy toddler. And maybe the small stresses add up to being too much, because they’ve been going on for so long, or a lot of them are happening all at the same time. But you don’t have to let stress rule your life. Whether you feel stressed every now and then, or all the time, you need to work out what’s bothering you and find ways to cope. Stress isn’t good for you… mostly. You need to know the difference between good stress and bad stress. It sounds strange, but some stress can help you get through a tough situation. When you’re alert and aware
67
EC Magazines | Christmas Edition 2022
Made with FlippingBook Proposal Creator