By Natasha Devon, Patron
In my experience, people will broadly have one of three responses when asked about stress. There are the people who claim never to experience it (usually for reasons of associating it with ‘weakness’). There’s the other extreme – people who believe it is their default state and somehow a badge of honour. And then you have the rest of us. Those who try to avoid stress whenever possible but find it difficult because the world is an increasingly stressful place.
My view on stress changed when I undertook Mental Health First Aid England instructor training, back in 2017. We were shown a graphic of a ‘stress bucket’ and taught that every time we encounter something frustrating, anger-making or panic-inducing, a little stress will flow into it. The aim is not to prevent this (because that would be impossible) but to regulate the total amount of stress sloshing about in the bucket by regularly draining it, via a metaphorical tap.
Turning on your stress bucket tap isn’t something to do in response to feeling stressed. It’s a daily, preventative measure – kind of like brushing your teeth. Generally speaking, there are three really good ways to do it. The first is physical activity, the second creativity and the third relaxation. Today, I take time to do something that fits into one of these three categories as often as I can – I aim for a total of one hour every day.
Of course, there are still times when I feel overwhelmed. If there’s one, giant thing taking up lots of space in my bucket then the smaller things seem less surmountable. That’s why during the pandemic, when we all had this enormous source of worry, many of us lost the ability to deal with the smaller trials and tribulations of life. I have a friend who copedremarkably well with the life-threatening pandemic sweeping the world’s population, but during one lockdown cried for three hours because she put a red sock in her white wash. That’s classic stress bucket overflow.
Whilst daily turning on the tap isn’t a perfect solution for every scenario, it’s a good baseline rule. The challenge for many, though, is finding the requisite time and energy.
Recently, I’ve been visiting more work places with my campaign Where’s Your Head At. I’ve been challenging employers to ask themselves whether a working parent in their organisation would realistically have the time and money to practice this vital form of self-care. If not, what could they do to facilitate?
Work circumstances can, of course, hugely increase amount of stress flowing into the bucket. In his (brilliant) book the Wellbeing Toolkit, Andrew Cowley cautions that wellbeing should not be conflated with self-care. You can’t offset a hugely unmanageable work load with a few cut-price yoga sessions, for example.
Yet often, when employers ask staff to anonymously submit suggestions for reducing workplace stress the requested changes are relatively simple. It could be introducing a rule that no one sends work emails after a certain time of day. It could be providing free gym memberships for employees. It could be making it common practice for everyone to leave their desks and take a decent lunch break. It could be introducing quiet areas or ‘chill out zones’ where staff can go when they need half an hour to think, or restore.
And evidence shows the return on that investment will likely be huge. Stress not only increases the chances of developing both physical and mental illnesses, it can also reduce an individual’s ability to problem solve, make decisions and think creatively.
A thriving business requires productive and present staff and stress is the enemy of that aim.
Find out more about Natasha’s work at www.natashadevon.com
