Every year, April is recognised as Stress Awareness Month!
It's a month where we can talk about and hopefully bring attention to the negative impacts that stress can have on our mental health. It’s also a fantastic opportunity for us all to find ways to better manage our stress!
Stress is something we often talk a lot about at Burton and District Mind as we do understand that it can be difficult to deal with sometimes. Although stress is not in of itself a mental illness, too much stress can trigger signs and symptons of mental health problems.
Mind have some excellent resources regarding stress: What is stress? - Mind
This year, the theme of Stress Awareness Month is #LittlebyLittle, which highlights the impact of small positive actions on our overall well-being. When it comes to mental health it is normal to sometimes fall into the thing of perhaps trying to drastically change big things in our life to hopefully ‘fix it’. However, taking smaller steps each day can be very beneficial for us, and even yield significant improvements on our well-being and mental health over time.
Here is an example!
Perhaps every day you are finding that instead of finding time to do the things you might enjoy, you are instead focusing on getting everything else done instead with no time left over for you. You are important, and you deserve to have some time to just do the things you enjoy! For example, perhaps you could set aside a small segment each day where you can do a hobby or activity that you really enjoy. This could be reading a book, playing video games, completing puzzles, sewing or many other potential things! Doing this regularly can also help you to have something to look forward to!
That is just one of the things that you could implement into your life to improve things #Littlebylittle and hopefully, it is something that you may be interested in giving a go!
If not, here are some other ideas that may be more your style!
1) Prioritise sleep
2) Keep active
3) Spend time out in nature
4) Practise breathing exercises and Mindfulness techniques
5) Have an escape when you are feeling overwhelmed such as listening to music
6) Don’t ever by afraid to ask for help!
At Burton and District Mind, we offer several things that could be fantastic for this!
Our Eco-Therapy has resumed, which can help you to be outside in nature and experience many of the benefits that can come with that. If this is something you’d like to give a go please get in touch today.
If you are interested in learning some of the different things that could help you to manage your stress, we have lots of information and tips that you can find right here: https://www.burtonmind.co.uk/post/stress-management
If you are struggling with your mental health, please know that we are here for you and will support you through these difficult times. You can find more information on how to register with our services here.