Dundee Association for Mental Health

Everyone feels stressed at some time within their lives.  Stress can turn our lives upside down as it can affect our feelings, our thoughts and our actions.  It can make you feel under pressure, worried, tense, upset, sad, angry, or a feeling of being uncomfortable or maybe even a mixture of all of these.  Life changes such as moving house, getting married, coping with a divorce or bereavement can all cause stress while there may be other areas in our lives which can cause stress such as money worries, coping with unemployment or redundancy, problems at work or problems with neighbours etc.  These are just a few examples but stress can mean different things to different people.  A situation that may cause stress to one person may not have an impact on another person.  What you feel is determined not just by the actual event that may be happening to cause stress in your life but how you perceive and respond to it. 

It is believed that a little stress is good for us as it alerts the mind.   Stress can make you feel that you cannot cope which can have an effect on our self confidence and self esteem, you may start to withdraw and avoid doing things which leads to you becoming more isolated which can lead to depression.  It becomes a vicious circle.

Instead of going into self destruct mode, we can try and learn to accept that there are real reasons for us to feel stressed and try to accept the reasons of our stress and take steps to reduce the effects and learn to cope with it. 

There are many different things you could try that may help you cope with stress these include learning relaxation techniques, self help groups, counselling and psychotherapy and medical treatment are just a few.