Action Changes Things!

This is this year’s Stress Awareness Month theme, and we want to use this as our rallying cry to everyone to take the time to focus on your own mental health and to empower you to have conversations about stress and wellbeing with your friends, family, and in particular, within your workplace.

We all know what it is like to feel stressed – being under pressure is usually a normal part of life. But after the challenges of the last few years and ongoing uncertainty, some of us are finding ourselves overwhelmed by stress. This can lead to mental health problems or exacerbate existing problems, cause exhaustion, physical illness, and impact on every aspect of your life.

April is Stress Awareness Month and we have gathered together some important information on our mental health hub about stress and burnout, how to recognise the signs and tips to help aid better sleep and build resilience. There is also information available about money and mental health, parenting and mental health, alongside loads of other useful stuff.

Stress Awareness Month has been held every April since 1992 to raise awareness of the causes and cures for our modern stress epidemic. This year The Stress Management Society have chosen the theme of Action Changes Things (ACT) #actnow

The month is “an invitation to go beyond talk and campaign for taking action and personal responsibility in creating a positive change. We aim to create an opportunity for all of us to consider how we are going to do something to make things better.”

We hope this information can help you support your own mental health and build resilience. We also want to empower you as employees and employers to talk about stress and focus on workplace wellbeing because…

“New data suggests that for almost 70% of people, their manager has more impact on their mental health than their therapist or their doctor—and it’s equal to the impact of their partner.” Forbes

It has also recently been reported that “People taking sick days because of work-related stress or burnout is costing the UK economy £28bn a year” Independent

We are inviting employers during Stress Awareness Month to challenge attitudes and approaches to workplace wellbeing. Manchester Mind offer a range of training courses for managers and employees, which aim to eliminate stigma and improve understanding of mental health, enabling cultural change. Throughout the month of April they are offering 10% discount on our What is Stress? Wellbeing Workshop and Finding a Healthy Balance: Managing Stress, and Building Healthy Habits. Both courses are available online (or face-to-face if your organisation is based in Manchester). 100% of the profits from these courses is invested directly into delivering mental health services to those in need.

If you want to start a conversation with your manager (or you are a manager) Mind’s Workplace Wellness Plans are also a really useful resource to support your our wellbeing and your workplace wellbeing strategy.

Read more about stress and burnout, as well as our stress relieving tips for improving your sleep and helping get a good work/life balance.

For further support on Mental Health and many other areas, please see the Primordial Radio resources page which has links to a range of organisation that can help you.