HEALTH MATTERS: Stress Awareness Month

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HEALTH MATTERS WITH DR HANNA ROBBINS

National Stress Awareness Month

TWO thirds of us have felt more stressed than ever before since the first lockdown in March 2020. Despite the negatives over the last two years, one of the positives has been a greater awareness of mental health issues.

To continue this good trend it’s vital that let people know it’s okay to feel mentally unwell and talk about this, so let’s talk about stress over the next few weeks.

What is stress?

Stress is not always a ‘bad’ thing
For our cavepeople ancestors it helped respond to danger
Being ‘danger ready’ is called ‘fight or flight’ mode

In ‘fight or flight’, blood flows to the mus- cles and our heart pounds to get ready for running or a fight with a bear! ‘Fight or flight’ mode has its uses even today, for example:

reacting quickly if someone runs in front of our car by slamming on the brakes
can help with sports performance
helps us focus for something short like a test or exam

But when we go into a state of stress at other times, it can cause problems. If all our blood is going to our muscles but not to our brain, it is difficult to ‘think straight’. This makes things tricky at home or at work.

If we are stressed for long periods, our blood pressure or sugar levels can become high and this damages our health. We can feel irritable or angry which affects rela- tionships. Our breathing and chest might feel tight. We might try to deal with this by avoiding the things that make us feel stressed, which only makes the stress worse when we do have to face it.

Over the next few weeks we’ll think about how to recognise signs of stress in ourselves and those around us, what we can do to prevent stress, and how to sup- port someone who is dealing with stress.