April marks the start of Stress Awareness Month. Set up by the Stress Management Society, its aim is to raise awareness of the causes and cures for our modern-day stress epidemic - and an opportunity for an open conversation on the impact of stress.
It is also a chance to talk about stress, and its effects and open up about our mental and emotional state with friends, families, colleagues, and professionals.
With this in mind, we've pulled together some of our top reads on stress:
What is stress?
According to Mind, which provides advice and support to empower anyone experiencing a mental health problem and campaigns to improve services, raise awareness and promote understanding of mental health, stress is how we react when we feel under pressure or threatened.
Read more on the Mind charity page.
Work stress
We love this article on how to deal with stress at work from Forbes.
It's Sunday night, and you're winding down after a fun-filled weekend. Despite your good mood, feelings of stress start to creep in as you realise another working week is about to begin. Sound familiar?
What you're feeling is likely work stress, or the mental, physical and/or emotional strain you feel caused by your job. Work stress is common—64% of employed adults experienced work stress in 2019 and 2020, according to the American Psychological Association's (APA) Stress in America survey. But that doesn't mean workplace stress is unavoidable.
Read the full article on how to deal with stress at work on Forbes.
Is stress actually a good thing?
When we think of stress, we often make negative associations.
After all, we have been fed a narrative via mainstream press and medical sectors surrounding stress and its negative impact on health.
But would you believe us if we told you that stress can actually be a good thing? Here are Vyou we recently wrote a blog post about whether stress can be a good thing. Read more on the Vyou blog.
Stress in the global workscape
One for research fans - it's worth checking out Gallup's State of the Global Workplace: 2022 Report.
It found that stress among the world's workers reached an all-time high - again.
The summary outlines that whether employees are stressed because of work, or their stress is carrying over into work, one thing is clear: The world's employees are feeling even more stressed than they did in 2020 (the previous all-time high).
They found that 44% of employees experienced a lot of daily stress in the previous day and while almost half of the world's workers felt the burden of stress, working women in the U.S. and Canada region were among the most stressed employees globally.
Read the full summary and download the Gallup report here.
Is stress becoming a problem within your teams? Check out how Vyou can help you with stress, and a huge number of other work wellness challenges, today.
