National Stress awareness day

Stress in a human reaction to pressure, and it affects more than half a million people in the UK to the point where they believe it's making them ill, and almost 13 million work days are lost to stress, depression and anxiety every year.

Much of this stress comes from the workplace, where the pressure to perform, are linked to the pressure to provide for your family, or to keep a roof pver your head, which is why the theme of this year's stress awareness day is stress in the workplace.

Acording to the leaflet, there is a difference between stress and pressure. We all experience pressure on a daily basis, and need it to motivate us and enable us to perform at our best. It’s when we experience too much pressure without the opportunity to recover that we start to experience stress.

We can all feel stressed at times when we feel as though everything becomes too much, when things get on top of us, or when we feel as though we are unable to cope. It affects us in different ways at different times and is often the result of a combination of factors in our personal and working lives.

Work-related stress can be tackled by working with your employer to identify issues at source and agreeing realistic and workable ways to tackle these.

Try to identify the causes and what you can do to make things better. Ideally, tell your manager at an early stage. If your stress is work- related, this will give them the chance to help and prevent the situation getting worse, while even if it isn’t work-related, they may be able to do something to reduce some of your pressure.

Many employees are reluctant to talk about stress at work, due to the stigma attached to it. They fear they will be seen as weak. But stress is not a weakness, and can happen to anyone. Remember: no employer should subject their employees to work-related stress, and this is an issue both you and your employer should take seriously.

Wednesday 12th November is national stress awareness day, organised for the 8th year running, by the International Stress Management Association, to raise awareness of the fact that stress really can make us ill. The event is supported by the HSE and involves a range of activities planned around the UK.