April is Stress Awareness Month. There might have been a time, 20-30 year ago, when stress was not as well recognised as a negative aspect of life. However, most people are now keenly aware of its potential to have a detrimental effect on someone’s mental health and wellbeing.
If it was possible to construct a basic equation of when stress switches from being neutral to becoming damaging in someone’s life. it would probably look a bit like this:
NUMBER OF STRESSORS X (LACK OF CONTROL+DURATION OF PRESSURE) = DAMAGING STRESS
But this is still a difficult equation to work out. This is because both the elements in brackets, causing the multiplication factor on the original stressor(s), are subjective and individual to each person. In particular, each person’s intrinsic, personal, need for control over matters in their life, is incredibly variable. However, it has a very significant influence on how each of us assesses and copes with stress.
Stress Awareness Month is promoted by the Stress Management Society. This is a not-for-profit organisation. It has some great resources on its website including an assessment tool and a Stress Guide.
The University has lots of resources to assist you if you are feeling stressed because of work or your home situation. All the information you need on available help can be found on the University’s Mental Health Support webpages.
Additionally, from this week, we are launching a Staff Wellbeing Yammer Channel. The Yammer feed will keep you up to date with what’s going on with Staff Wellbeing. And, it will let you spread the word to others about the wellbeing events and initiatives you might organise, either regularly or as one-offs. The feed will promote discussion about wellbeing at Kent and foster a sense of community, which, in itself, helps to enhance people’s sense of wellbeing. The more people who join up, the greater the level of interaction.
If you are interested in what is going on with Staff Wellbeing at the University and/or are involved in organising communications and events related to wellbeing in your local divisions or teams, the Staff Wellbeing Yammer channel is exactly what you need!