This month is stress awareness month which aims to raise awareness of the causes and cures for our modern-day stress epidemic.

There is such a thing as a healthy amount of stress, but when we endure too much for too long, it can cause all sorts of physical and mental health challenges.

One of the tools we use to help people understand and manage stress is the ‘Stress container’

The Stress Container

We hold stresses like a container but we also have activities, techniques and processes which help release them like a tap

The container aims to show that we all have limits of how much stress we can endure. If our container becomes too full, our stress can spill over in all sorts of unhelpful ways; irritability, poor concentration, physical health conditions. But the container has on it a release valve, and managing our stress will involve us letting stress out via that release valve.

If asked, most of us can probably name healthy and unhealthy ways of releasing stress. The test we often ask people to apply to any stress relieving actions is ‘Is it helpful or harmful’. Some things can be both. Having a glass of wine may relax us, but if done to excess is likely to compound our challenges. Talking to others can be really helpful, but if they don’t listen well or validate our experiences, it may have the opposite effect.