20 Stress-Busting Tips To Mark Stress Awareness Month

20 Stress-Busting Tips To Mark Stress Awareness Month

Written by Tina Phillips (she/her)

April was Stress Awareness Month, landing squarely at a time where stress levels for most of us are much higher than usual. Stress Awareness Month has been held every April since 1992 to increase public awareness about both the causes and cures for our modern stress epidemic.

“74% of UK adults have felt so stressed at some point over the last year they felt overwhelmed or unable to cope.” – Mental Health Foundation

Millions of us are experiencing high levels of stress making it one of the great public health challenges of our time, but it still isn’t being taken as seriously as physical health concerns. Stress is a significant factor in mental health problems including anxiety and depression. It is also linked to physical health problems like heart disease, problems with our immune system, insomnia and digestive problems.

The impact of the stresses, distractions and challenges brought on by remote working during a pandemic cannot be underestimated. All of a sudden we are being asked (told!) to work from home and while the notion for many may be appealing, for a lot of us it’s very stressful. Being productive in a space that wasn’t set up for work, having kids/partners/pets distracting us all the time, or – on the flipside, feeling extremely isolated, is taking its toll. So, it was more important than ever for us to not only mark Stress Awareness Month but also find real and tangible ways to support the team in the long term, too.

Our brilliant office manager Flick sourced and then published Daily Stress Tips every day on our dedicated #wellbeing Slack channel, and we’re delighted to now share a downloadable guide so that everyone can benefit from them.

Click here to download INSHUR’S 20 Ways To Combat Stress.

Here’s a preview of some of the tips and be sure to download the guide to get them all, as well as links to videos and other resources.

‍‍ Talk to Someone

Talking things through with a friend, work colleague, or even a trained professional can help you find solutions to your stress and put your problems into perspective.

Challenge yourself

Setting yourself goals and challenges, whether at work or outside, such as learning a new language helps build confidence. This will help you deal with stress. By continuing to learn, you become more emotionally resilient as a person.

Take Control

Stress can be triggered by a problem that may on the surface seem impossible to solve. Learning how to find solutions to your problems will help you feel more in control thereby lowering your level of stress.

Accept the things you can’t change

Changing a difficult situation isn’t always possible. Try to concentrate on the things you do have control over. There is almost always a solution which shouldn’t cause too many problems! Alternatively, sometimes situations are out of your control and you have to accept that there is nothing you can possibly do to change the situation, so you should try not to let it affect you and leave the situation to sort itself out.

Learn to Say ‘No’

A common cause of stress is having too much to do and too little time in which to do it. And yet in this situation, many people will still agree to take on additional responsibility. Learning to say “No” to additional or unimportant requests will help to reduce your level of stress, and may also help you develop more self-confidence.

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