What is Stress?

Stress is the body's reaction to feeling threatened or under pressure. It's very common, can be motivating to help us achieve things in our daily life, and can help us meet the demands of home, work and family life.

But too much stress can affect our mood, our body and our relationships – especially when it feels out of our control. It can make us feel anxious and irritable, and affect our self-esteem.

Experiencing a lot of stress over a long period of time can also lead to a feeling of physical, mental and emotional exhaustion, often called burnout.

Identifying stress patterns

Stress can affect everyone differently. Sometimes, we cannot avoid stress and stressful situations, but understanding what makes you stressed and how it affects you can help you to better manage these feelings and reduce your stress levels.

Top tips to deal with stress and burnout

• Split up big tasks: If a task seems overwhelming and difficult to start, try breaking it down into easier chunks, and give yourself credit for completing them.
• Allow yourself some positivity
• Take time to think about the good things in your life. Each day, consider what went well and try to list 3 things you're thankful for.
• Challenge your thoughts: The way we think affects the way we feel: watch the following link: https://players.brightcove.net/4934638104001/default_default/index.html?videoId=6090018984001
• Be more active: Being active can help you to burn off nervous energy. It will not make your stress disappear, but it can make it less intense.
• Talk to someone: Trusted friends, family and colleagues, or contacting a helpline, can help us when we are struggling.
• Plan ahead: Planning out any upcoming stressful days or events – a to-do list, the journey you need to do, things you need to take – can really help. Also if you know doing specific things cause you stress, can you plan activities or time out to provide relief afterwards
• Eat healthily: There is growing evidence of how food affects our mood, and how eating healthily can improve this
• Keep hydrated: Aim to drink 6-8 glasses
• Regular breaks: Take time to relax, and priories self-care
• Good sleeping patterns: Reduce technology an hour before bed, and try a 10-minute breathing exercise to wind-down
• Reduce Smoking and Alcohol
• Be Kind: Having a bad day is normal, try to keep things in perspective. Take a few minutes to appreciate yourself

Calming down when feeling overwhelmed

We can help manage feelings of anxiousness or being agitated by finding ways to calm our minds and bodies.

Maybe try this breathing exercise to manage the feeling quickly:

1. Sit somewhere quiet where you can feel safe and relaxed.
2. Think of a colour you associate with negative feelings – maybe grey, or red.
3. As you breathe out, imagine you are breathing out that colour like a cloud.
4. Now think of a colour that symbolises positive feelings – maybe green, or yellow.
5. As you breathe in, imagine you are breathing in that positive colour, filling your lungs.
6. Do this for at least five breaths.

Have a look at our resources to see how you can look after yourself

Signs of Stress

30 day challenge

Top 10 Tips to master your emotions

Managing worries

Stress Risk Assessment 

Pressure is part of work and keeps us motivated and productive. But too much pressure, or pressure that lasts for a long time, can lead to stress, which undermines performance, is costly to employers, and can damage both physical and mental health.

Common causes of work-related stress include too much or too little work, lack of control over the work being done and a lack of support for management, colleagues or the organisation. 

There are actions you can take to reduce the pressure these things can cause.

We want to be proactive in managing stress in work.

The HSE identified the following reasons for stress at work:

• Demands: Including issues such as workload, work patterns and the work environment
• Control: How much say the person has in the way they do their work
• Support: Including the encouragement, sponsorship and resources provided by the organisation, line management and colleagues
• Relationships: Including promoting positive working to avoid conflict and dealing with unacceptable behaviour
• Role: Whether people understand their role and whether the organisation ensures that they do not have conflicting roles
• Change: How organisational change (large or small) is managed and communicated

We are currently working on the LUFHT stress policy and risk assessment to ensure that it is user friendly and ensures that the role of the employee and manager are clear and that action plan is effective to reduce the stress. 

Yearly Stress Risk Assessment:

Every April during stress awareness every team leader will be encouraged to complete a stress risk assessment with their team. Occupational health and Well-being, Health and safety and HR will then look at areas with high stress and target interventions in this area. 

Personal Stress Risk Assessment: 

If you are experiencing individual work related stress you can access the form/ complete it and discuss it with your manager and complete an action plan to help you. 

The Stress Risk Assessment Form can be obtained here