Mental health expert on supporting your wellbeing this Stress Awareness Month

April is Stress Awareness Month and some say that a little bit of stress is good for you, but too much can have severe consequences on both your physical and mental health. Negative stress is implicated in all major mental illnesses and all lifestyle related illnesses such as type 2 diabetes, it is even implicated in autoimmune illness and cancer etc.

How can you tell if you are feeling stressed? Ask yourself:

• Do you feel overwhelmed by daily demands or feel that you cannot control important things in your life?
• Do you feel tense, worried, or anxious often?
• Are you struggling to relax or unwind?
• Have you noticed physical signs like fatigue, headaches, or muscle tension?
• Are you losing your temper more easily or feeling moody?
• Are you neglecting self-care, such as not eating well or not sleeping enough?

What is stress? Simply put, stress is how our body and mind reacts to actual or perceived external stressors. When a threat is perceived, hormones are released to encourage us to take immediate action. Crucial to understand is that a certain amount of these hormones and ’stress’ is pretty helpful. Not just in the usual understanding of fight, flight etc but in dealing with life tasks. The energy from adrenaline can get us moving and take action. We are then putting the stress hormone to good use. This active central nervous system is needed to accomplish anything in life. It also needs to be balanced by its opposite relaxed state. It’s often described as ‘sympathetic’ nervous system, active, or ‘parasympathetic’ nervous system, or relaxed.

Aston spoke to psychotherapist & mental health expert Noel McDermott.