What Is Stress Awareness Month?
Since 1992, April marks Stress Awareness Month.
This month is dedicated to highlighting the impact of stress in our lives and what we can do to help manage and alleviate it.
What Is Stress?
Stress can be described as our body’s reaction to feeling overwhelmed or under a lot of pressure.
Things That Commonly Cause Stress
- Work
- School
- Home life
- Relationships
- Money and finances
- Planning trips or holidays
Signs Of Stress
- A rapid and fast heartbeat
- Low mood and pessimism
- A lack of motivation and energy
- Shortness of breath and shaking
- A lack of eating and sleeping moderation
- Struggling to concentrate or focus on tasks
- A withdrawal from social activities and circle
Stress typically makes people behave in one of the following three ways: fight, flight or freeze
Fight
- One becomes easily irritated and aggressive to those around them
Flight
- Rather than deal with the situation head-on, a person will try to avoid it, becoming reclusive in the process
Freeze
- Stress can make a person feel so worried and on edge that they become so fixated on it and in some cases even paralyzed by it
How To Manage It
It is always important to look after your mental health.
With exam season fast approaching, it can become easy to lose sight of this so here are some tips to help manage your stress :
- Stay hydrated
- Take study breaks when needed
- Exercise however and whenever you can
- Take time out to do something that you enjoy
- Although it’ll be tempting to do otherwise, make sure to eat and sleep well
- Talk to tutors, friends and family about how you’re feeling and finding things
- Be realistic with how much work you’ll get done at a time and spread out your workload
If you feel that you need extra support and help managing your stress, then please do try and speak to your GP or visit the Student Wellbeing Centre.
Click the link below and take a test to see what your current stress level is.
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