International Stress Awareness Week

International Stress Awareness Week will be held from 4 to 8 November 2024 and is held annually to raise awareness about stress and its effect on health and wellbeing. 

When you are stressed, your body releases a hormone called adrenaline (often called the "fight or flight" hormone), which usually gives us a boost or motivates us to act quickly. But too much stress can affect your mood, your body, and your relationships – especially when it feels out of our control. It can make you feel anxious, irritable and can also affect your self-esteem. 

Experiencing long-term stress or severe stress can lead to feeling physical, mental, or emotional exhaustion, often called "burnout". The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) delivered a session to raise awareness about fatigue, burnout and resilience in the working environment and the preventive measures to effectively deal with it. To access this session, click here. 

Stress can affect your emotions, and it may cause you to: 

• Be irritable, angry or tearful; 
• Feel worried, anxious, hopeless or scared; 
• Struggle to make decisions, have racing thoughts or feel overwhelmed. 

The physical symptoms of stress include: 

• Stomach problems, stress headaches and other pains including muscle pains; 
• Skin reactions, like stress rashes and hives;  Feeling dizzy, sick or faint; 
• Sometimes, it can cause high blood pressure and chest pains, but these symptoms should stop when your stress goes. If you have any symptoms that you are worried about you should see your GP. 

Stress can also make you behave differently, especially around how much you eat or exercise, habits around drinking, smoking and socialising.  Better Health offers advice on how to deal and manage stress – click here to access.  

The Stress Management Society offers a stress test to help you assess your current levels of stress. The goal of this stress test is to help you recognise your stress levels and encourage you to take proactive steps towards building stress resilience. Once you have completed your Stress Test you will find tools and tips to help you live a more stress-free life. Take the Stress Test – click here 

Upcoming Events:

Life Events and Self Care 

This session will provide an opportunity to reflect on life events and personally recognise how stress manifests. The session will provide further opportunity to pinpoint positive action to address these manifestations, along with a review of other positive psychological techniques to use. The session will be delivered by Nicola Adair from the Learning Academy.    

When: Friday 8 November 2024 from 10am - 11am via MS teams. To register and receive the joining link click here.  

Coping with Stress with SEHSCT Recovery College   

The South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust’s Recovery College are offering a course to help you cope with stress and is designed to equip you with the tools and knowledge you need to cope with difficult situations, reduce stress levels, and live a more balanced life. It will be an interactive session with experienced trainers, and you will learn skills such as deep breathing, mindfulness, and positive self-talk, as well as gaining an understanding of the causes of stress and how to manage them.   

When: 20 and 27 November 2024 from 6pm - 7.15pm via Zoom. To register your place, complete the booking form - click here or email: recovery.college@setrust.hscni.net 

Stress Control NI   

HSCNI offer online Stress Control programmes over a 6-week period and will combine behavioural therapy, positive psychology, and wellbeing to help you tackle common mental health problems such as anxiety, depression, panic, poor sleep, poor wellbeing, low self-confidence, and low self-esteem. For more information you can watch this video. Sessions will start on Monday 11 November 2024 at 9am for 6 weeks. To access the course and joining instructions, visit click here.   

More information and support can be access in the Healthy Minds section on the Mind Yourself App.