The following excerpt is taken from How to Manage and Reduce Stress published on Mental Health Foundation.
With exams just around the corner, we know everyone feels stressed and burned out.
Before trying to relieve stress, find the signs that tell you, you are feeling stressed. Some common signs could be:
- feelings of constant worry or anxiety
- feelings of being overwhelmed
- difficulty concentrating
- mood swings or changes in your mood
- irritability or having a short temper
- difficulty relaxing
- depression
- low self-esteem
- eating more or less than usual
- changes in your sleeping habits
- aches and pains, particularly muscle tension
- feelings of nausea or dizziness
Three steps to take when feeling stressed
1. Realize when it is causing you a problem
- Try to make the connection between feeling tired or ill and the pressures you are faced with
- Look out for physical warnings such as tense muscles, over-tiredness, headaches or migraines
2. Identify the causes
- Try to identify the underlying causes
- Sort the possible reasons for your stress into three categories 1) those with a practical solution 2) those that will get better given time and 3) those you can’t do anything about
- Try to release the worry of those in the second and third groups and let them go
3. Review your lifestyle
- Could you be taking on too much?
- Are there things you are doing which could be handed over to someone else?
- Can you do things in a more leisurely way?
- To act on the answer to these questions, you may need to prioritise things you are trying to achieve and re-organise your life
- This will help to release pressure that can come from trying to do everything at once
May is also observed as the Mental Health Awareness Month in the United States since 1949. To learn more about the 2018 theme of “CureStigma“, visit www.nami.org.
Supplement this with Stress: are we coping? and Your mental health.
The IIMM Times 