It's National Stress Awareness Day today, and everyone knows about stress at work. If you haven't had stress at work before - kudos to you!

An overview from NCS

Broadly, young people are positive. You are realists - you worry about your future,but at the saem time you are adjusting to the world around you. You might not think owning a home is possible, and this might be a stressful though, but you still want to work in an industry that interests you. You want to be entreprenueriel, comfortable and most importantly, want to do better than your parents generation!

This being said, stress can still be a big part of your life. 3 out of 5 of you are worried about your future, but what can we do to help you?

How do I know I'm stressed?

You might feel impatient, aggressive, anxious, neglected, uninterested, like you've lost your sense of humour. You could also find it hard to make decisions, get quite snappy at people, bite your nails, eat too much or even feel very tearful.

Any of these sound familiar? We thought we'd take the time to put together some tips on how to cope with at work. But it's important to remember that if you are stressed at work, talk to you friends, family and more important your colleagues. If it's because you feel you've got too much work on - your line manager can work with you to make your life more stress-free.

How to cope with stress

Keep a diary

This might sound really childish, but we're not saying to start each entry with "Dear Diary". But just write down when you feel really stressed, what happened, who was involved, and how you reacted. This might help you identify what makes you more stressed. An easy way to do this is to just add a note to your phone and add to it on there.

Healthy Responses

When a lot of people get stressed, a lot of people fight it with fast food or alcohol. When actually, exercise is a great way to beat stress. Whether you want to go for a run, go to the gym or do an exercise class like yoga, find something that helps you clear your head. When I was doing my A-Levels I found it really nice to go for a run and clear my head before starting revision again.

Make boundaries

Don't feel pressured to work 24 hours a day. It can be easy to think you have to - when you can access work emails from your phone, but you shouldn't have to. Set yourself rules, whether it's to not check emails in the evenings or weekends or only answer the phone until 6pm each day. This will help you have YOU TIME!

Time to Recharge

This doesn't just mean getting your full 8 hours of sleep a night. Although sleeping will help you, don't stay up late and if you struggle to sleep talk to your doctor about sleeping pills. Also book yourself holidays, take time away from work and don't think about it. Just give yourself a break from work completely!

Relax

There are lots of things you can do to help you relax. Whether you need to get a stress ball, or learn a technique to help you breathe calmly if you get stressed, if something works for you - do it.

Talk to your boss

If you don't have the opportunity to have a 1:1 with your supervisor, then ask them for 5 minutes during your shift. Let them know how you feel, after all, they're going to want you to be happy so you're more proactive and want to be at work.

Get support

Talk to your friends and family about how you feel. If you feel really stressed, it might be worth talking to your doctor. They'll be able to talk to you properly and give you support on how to help you feel less stressed. 

We're not the experts in stress, but Mind is.

A great charity to talk to is Mind. If you want to talk to someone at Mind call 03001233393 or text 86463.

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