Address your stress

Stress is generally used to describe how people feel when they’re overwhelmed and unable to cope. Stress is normal, it’s the body’s way of coping, keeping us alert and energetic and what helps us to cope and thrive when we deal with unexpectedness. In an emergency it’s stress that gives us that extra strength and push to do what we need to do.

Beyond a particular point though, stress can be damaging. Stress doesn’t always need to be triggered by a bad thing, you can be stressed over something that you’re really happy about, for example, planning a wedding. But if the stress gets too much and we don’t know how to deal with it, it can make us feel really down.

So here are some tips on how to manage stress;

Recognise your symptoms of stress. When you start to get stressed do you get tired, get headaches or do you get muscle tension. Noticing and being aware of your symptoms will help you to catch it early and counteract it.

Try and think about things logically. If you’re overloaded or worrying about things, work out what you can control and what you can’t. Then you can come up with a solution for those you’re able to control and those you aren’t, as hard as it can be, you can try to let them go.

Make time to do things for yourself, things that make you happy. We’ve got some ideas for that if you have no idea in our ‘what is health’ post.

Exercise regularly. Exercise releases endorphins and that relieves stress, it also gives you something else to focus on and get out of your head. Almost like a form of meditation.

Learn to relax. It’s important to try and relax, relax the muscles and take deep breaths.

Make lifestyle changes. If you’ve got too much on, start saying no or rearranging those things you’re able to. Prioritise, delegate and slow down.

And finally, get a good night’s sleep

If you don’t address the stress it can make problems worse and lead to physical problems, so slow down and take a moment to breathe when you need to.