The impacts of stress in the workplace..

With 1 in 4 people being affected by mental health issues, it’s no real surprise, that you will probably work with someone who is experiencing a mental health issue.

STRESS

One of the leading causes of mental health issues such as anxiety and depression is stress.  Life stress, work stress and psychological stress.  Too much stress can cause anxiety to be prolonged and too much stress for too long can lead to depression.  However, stress is relatively unavoidable in life.  As humans we can experience a huge amount of different types of stress at any given time in our lives, and how we cope becomes the reality of the outcome of that stressful situation.

How do you cope in a stressful situation?  Is it helpful?  Is it it healthy?  Does it take care of you and help reduce your stress levels?

WORKSHOP

I was recently asked to deliver a stress strategies workshop to a large team of nursery nurses in Glasgow.  The owner, Alison Harkin,  is a leader in her field and her investment in her staff and supporting programs at ACE Place Nurseries is second to none.  I’ve been so encouraged to see an employer really driving this level of support towards her staff.

We spent two hours engaging and learning everything we could in a short space of time about stress; what it is, what causes it, the impacts of stress and how we could go towards healthier ways of coping to improve our own quality of life.  We ended up having lots of fun, and drastically reduced stress levels on the night, and learning the tools to keep that going long after the workshop is over.

It’s really got me to thinking about stress in a different light and how we could really treat stress before it becomes a mental health disorder.  Like a form of PREHAB, or skills for life.  I certainly wish I had the knowledge that I do now, in my 20 & 30’s – life’s stressors would have been treated with a much different approach.

Keep an eye out as I’m going to be running some events on and offline to work on stress, and helping people reduce their stress levels using CBT.