Stress Awareness Month 2023: Danielle Bridge ABC Life Support column

What is it?

Stress is not a psychiatric diagnosis and has no formal medical definition. Many health professionals disagree over whether stress is the cause of problems or the result of them.

Stress can be largely considered in two ways: acute stress is a short-term response.

There are times when this could be considered natural or even useful for example during competition or sport where stress can help with motivation and performance.

Chronic stress is a longer term response and is unlikely to be useful. It leaves the body in an over amplified state of alert and runs the risk of developing mental health problems.

READ MORE: St Neots group offers help for those struggling with mental health

What causes it?

This is where the picture starts to get murky because whenever we talk about stress there is a tendency to form a negative connotation and think only in terms of unpleasant things.

In fact, stress comes from a myriad of different sources. What is important here is not what the source is, but how an individual interprets and responds to it.

This can be influenced by any number of factors for example: life experience, socioeconomic status, work, lifestyle, genetics.

This quote is useful in considering how stress affects us: 'work plays a key role in stress. Problems such as work life imbalance, feeling undervalued, reward v effort ratio all inform someone’s individual experience of stress'.

Stress becomes a problem for us when there is too much of it. If we think of this like a container, it’s the point at which it starts to overflow.

This is another key area of misunderstanding because the point of overflow is also an entirely individual thing. We all have different vulnerability to (or capacity for) stress which again is determined by different factors, many of which are beyond our control.

How do you recognise it?

When stress overflows and becomes too much for us, we will respond emotionally. This may differ from person to person.

Some people feel their stress as anger and may express this. Others may internalise it and become withdrawn, or cry.

It's useful to consider how you respond to stress so that you can identify when your own container may be getting too full. But it's equally important to develop a broader awareness of how other people may respond to stress so you can recognise the early signs in others.

Open and honest discussion about stress can help to develop this understanding.

What next? Home and professional intervention

Stress is one of those areas of life that is simple to comprehend but difficult to truly understand. Because we all encounter stress (frequently), it is easy to form unhelpful judgements based on our own experience.

Removing the barriers to empathy is one of the most important things we can do to support people in managing stress. This comes with understanding and practise.

Creating honest and non-judgemental discourse about stress both at work and at home is essential in deepening our understanding and in creating environments where people can flourish because they feel valued and understood.

Why is mental health first aid so important? 

Mental health first aid training is part of a wider strategy for organisations and communities to start changing the culture around mental health and wellbeing.

Mental health first aiders are equipped not only to identify emerging problems and intervene, but also to champion a greater understanding of mental health amongst their communities.