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Hello and welcome to the Stress Management
Self Help Guide for Adults.
Stress can be both a positive
and a negative force in our lives.
Stress is a normal part of life and it
can motivate us in various situations.
Our bodies are actually designed to deal with stress up to a point.
We have hormones in our body that help us
deal with threatening situations.
This is called the fight or flight mechanism.
For example if you're walking along a street late at night
and you suddenly hear footsteps close behind you,
you quickly become tense, more alert
and speed up to protect yourself.
The message the body is giving the brain
is that you need to move quickly away from a threatening
situation or stand and be able to defend yourself in it.
Some stresses are positive and normal
and a part of everyday life.
In this DVD we're going to examine what stress is,
how stress affects different people in different ways
and why we get stressed in the first place.
We're going to talk about how to recognise when we're stressed
and what we can do to ease our stress
on a day-to-day basis.
We're going to consider how to best manage our stress
so that when a problem comes along we can deal with it
positively and confidently.
You'll hear how people have developed a much healthier
attitude towards themselves, how they deal with problems
that are stressing them out along with how they learn
that looking after themselves not only benefits them but
also benefits family, friends and everyone else
they meet in their everyday lives.
Stress can affect all areas of our lives.
We can feel that we've lost control or that we're not coping
as well as we used to.
It can affect the way we feel about ourselves
and how we present ourselves to the rest of the world.
Stress can affect how we communicate.
It can have a negative effect on relationships
we have and it can make life more difficult than it usually is.
It can have a serious knock on effect
that can eventually impact on whole families or communities.
I think stress was just being - everything was out of control.
I couldn't control anything within my life.
Nothing felt right that I did or said.
Most of the time I just didn't want to go out of the house.
Stress is not being able to meet your expectations and
whatever you're doing in your career or family life and
you become so depressed by it
it and it brings you to a real low.
Well for me it was being irritable
and not coping very well and not communicating.
Not knowing who I was anymore.
Waking up in the morning knowing that you've got
so many things to do and not knowing where to start.
That way you don't achieve any of them
because you're trying to do far too many things at once.
Not being able to sleep and not being able to function properly.
You're just feeling so low that - isolated, feeling
nobody else really understood what was going on with you.
Stress affects us physically, mentally and emotionally
and this can then affect our health both
in the short term and in the long term.
Say it was like you feel all tense.
When you are that way the least wee thing annoys you.
I used to get a lot of headaches with it,
impatient, crabbit, irritable.
Just fly off the handle at anything and you just couldn't -
you would just to continue to think about whatever it was
that was bothering you. It would just eat away at you.
You couldn't sleep because of it.
I would start breathless, get breathless, couldn't breathe.
My body would start shaking as well and I'd constantly be
on the move trying to just forget what was going on.
Stomach, sort of, churning sometimes fear and worry.
Loss of appetite but the worst was the headaches.
Quite weepy, wasn't sleeping,
tired all the time, just run down basically.
I couldn't relax yeah I was always in pain,
my shoulders, my neck, my head. I didn't know how to relax.
If you're not able to have an outlet for your feelings
or you're not able to talk to someone,
eventually all that pent up pressure can create problems
like physical tension, back pain, headaches.
Because when you're stressed there are a lot of hormones and chemicals
being pumped into your body that affect the organs,
affect the muscles and over longer term that can
have a huge effect up to - for some people over a long period
can result in like heart attack, stroke.
So the range of effects are quite huge.
Stress does really hammer your self-esteem, it really does.
You do lose your confidence.
For me it was boredom I was just
- there was no motivation to get up in the morning.
Having a low self-esteem of yourself, low confidence.
I'd become very reclusive and I didn't want to go out
and I didn't bother with my appearance,
I didn't bother to wash or get dressed particular.
I was hiding under the duvet.
Started to get like a nervousness in my stomach
which can then cause light headedness
and then your mind starts racing.
You know you start thinking about oh my God
how am I going to manage to do this and
how am I going to manage to do that?
So that's like the physical symptoms and then
sometimes you can feel your throat getting tighter
and your chest starts pounding you know and then you're thinking
about it more which is making - enhancing all these feelings
which normally puts you into like a panic attack.
I went on with panic attacks for a good couple of months
before I went to the stress centre
and I didn't want to admit that I was ill.
Because I thought if I was that ill I had to give up my job
and my college because I was incapable of going anywhere
because I was just such a mess.
I didn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I couldn't communicate with my family.
I just kind of withdrew into myself.
It wasn't very pleasant and it affected my family and friends.
I was existing. I wasn't living I was just existing.
Unemployment is very high in the area.
Housing's not good.
People generally have a lot of health problems.
Their - you know their diet, basics things like their diet they don't tend
to kind of eat very well and obviously that's going to be linked
to how much money you've got
coming into the house in the first place.
Poverty problems in Glasgow's quite terrible,
definitely I think that's sort of a direct relation to stress.
It's definitely a difficult area to grow up in
and to go about your own life,
seeing the types of things that's happening around about you.
It's very depressing and very hard to take in.
Well at the moment there's like two gangs that kind of come in and meet,
we're kind of the meeting point. We're kind of in the middle
of about two other housing schemes and they seem to come into
our area and they're causing trouble in our area.
So it's quite stressful knowing that you cannot really go out at night,
you're worried is anything going to happen.
People may face problems with housing, neighbours, health,
money, bereavement.
They may have problems with their children or with their parents.
They might be going through a relationship or marriage crisis.
They might have an alcohol or drug issue.
They might have problems within their work
or they might have problems getting work.
People can normally deal with these problems
but sometimes when lots of different things happen all at once
or when major life events like births and deaths
and serious illnesses happen people can feel totally overwhelmed
and they lose confidence in their ability to cope
and this stresses them out.
I got a lot of stuff recently.
My son was stillborn in August there.
My uncle died the following week.
I fell pregnant with my son I found out on the Thursday
and my Dad was in hospital he had had cancer.
He got out on the Tuesday morning and Mum said come down
and we'll tell him on the Wednesday and he died on the Tuesday night.
So it kind of kicked in quite shortly after that.
My Dad died in the September and I was in the hospital by the October.
The reason I was under so much stress was because I had a split up
with my husband and it was very
- it really was very, very stressful.
Then a niece of - my niece died just after childbirth
Again it was a shock so there was a lot of turmoil there.
I suffered from years of abuse,
*** abuse and going and seeing a counsellor has made me feel
that it wasn't my fault.
For years I thought it was and that was a lot of the issues,
underlying issues that caused the stress to come out.
Sometimes people don't realise that they're stressed
and it takes another person to point it out.
Sometimes we can recognise when we're
stressed if we just take a little bit of time to work
out exactly how we're feeling.
It's only when we're aware that we're stressed that we
can do something about it.
I think it's recognising it in the first place,
knowing that you are under stress
and then putting methods in to deal with it.
I'm not almost certain that
I instantaneously know when I'm stressed
and I know what are the reasons why
but that doesn’t mean to say that I deal with it right then.
If you find that you're doing something out of character
like snapping all the time at someone you really care about,
getting angry or feeling low and not really wanting to get out of bed.
Feeling negatively about things when you're normally quite a positive person
this could be a sign that you're stressed.
Or you suddenly you might realise that your shoulders are hunched up
or the muscles in your neck are tight and sore
or you're regularly getting bad headaches,
this could also be a sign.
All it takes is a moment to realise it.
Sometimes instead of dealing positively with our stress
we try to avoid admitting that we have a problem
by ignoring the signs that tell us we're stressed.
the way that we used to do and this only makes things even worse.
problem or trauma or several different problems occur at once.
Alongside this some people have long term unresolved issues
in their lives that they're struggling to deal with.
They really begin to get stressed out and they feel they can't cope.
When we get too stressed we lose confidence in ourselves.
Our self-esteem takes a knock and
our belief in our ability to cope is shaken.
We blame and punish ourselves for not being able to cope
the way that we used to do and this only makes things even worse.
How we feel about ourselves affects how we interact
with the world around us and also
how positively and negatively other people react to us.
We live in a society where drinking alcohol or taking certain drugs
is an acceptable part of our culture
and it can be easy to use this as a means of escaping what is troubling us.
We can make ourselves overly busy and
pretend there isn't a problem at all.
We do all these things to distract ourselves but ultimately by doing this
we're only adding to the problems we already have
making us more stressed and less able to cope.
I deal with it in a different way now but
at one point I'd deal with my stress
with drugs and drink.
I was working too many hours which was a sign for me
I was putting myself into my work constantly.
I was fighting a lot of tears you know and becoming quite numb to situations
I should have been really emotional at.
The consequence of that was I lost respect of my family.
I lost contact with my daughter.
Job opportunities, my confidence, my self-esteem everything
just took a right knock.
I started socialising more. I started drinking more,
going out with friends more and again that was me running from the problems.
I did tend to overeat. I was comfort eating
and I'm - I know that because of the weight I put on.
Well when they get away from me
as being angry, I get angry and that with the family.
I felt if I admitted that I was suffering from stress
that that was me admitting that I was not coping
and I was scared not to be able to cope.
I never ever used to talk about my issues.
I think that's why I kind of buried myself
in drugs for so long, drugs and drink.
I started to realise how my stress related way back you know
and not just in my marriage and I had never beaten the cycle.
You know I had never broken the cycle of how I managed
worries and everything else in my life.
Sometimes we pull back from
interacting with the people that we love
or we blame them or ourselves because we feel
we can't confront the issues in our relationship.
Avoiding the problem only increases the resentment and stress that we feel.
As a result we lose perspective
and important relationships can break down completely.
It can affect you in your - obviously at home
with your family. It affects you in your workplace as well
because people make comments like,
oh you're not your usual self.
What's wrong with you? Things like that.
I realise that you know I was taking things out say maybe on my partner
who I shouldn't have been doing.
So it made me understand you know like I was the problem in certain things
and I gradually kind of got on top of it.
I was kind of running away a lot and crying.
I was not communicating with my husband right the marriage was breaking up
and I thought I really need to get some help here
to see if I can maybe save the marriage you know
to see what was going on in my head.
But we were not communicating right at all
and at first I didn't realise that it was stress.
I just knew I needed help in the marriage.
What we really do is take a step back.
Look at ourselves in the situation we're in
and give ourselves a little breathing space
or time to reflect on all the good things we do in our lives
despite the problems we might be facing.
We don't appreciate our good qualities.
If we begin to take care of ourselves then
then we'll realise that we have a lot of resources
inside that we can tap into to tackle the problems we might face.
Try to think about some of the positives even if everything
- a lot of things are really negative.
Think about the positive things, qualities you have in yourself.
So I would say invest in something in you,
something however small and consciously think about what you give,
what you're - the good qualities that you
have and not just focus on the negative.
We often find it really difficult to accept the good in ourselves,
the positive aspects, the strengths and the talents
that we have because everybody has that.
We're very focused on the negative aspects of ourselves
and then that feeds into our own negative thinking inside.
The way we criticise and judge ourselves
and that clouds the way we see
the world as well because the two things link up.
So it's really important to focus on
accepting who you are and the goodness in yourself.
Stress isn't anything to be ashamed of.
There's nothing ashamed about being stressed as part of life.
It's how we handle the stress makes all the difference.
People refuse to admit that they've got a problem.
People feel that it makes them a weaker person
to admit they're wrong but it's not
it makes you a much stronger person.
You've got the ego and the macho image and I don't think men like to
realise they've got a problem especially one they can't handle.
I had to start to looking at me and how I could change
and slow down and really see who I was and where I was coming from
you know to get through.
Well it's about people taking responsibility
for their own lives at the end of the day
but that's easier said than done.
Everything helps but I think you need to want to.
Nobody else could help you.
That's the main thing it's got to be - come from you.
You're taking care of yourself.
The female species are not very good at that
for a - lots and lots of reasons but
once again it's awareness that you really need to -
you're not being selfish and if you are being selfish
it's for all the right reasons.
It's so that you're well, your well-being,
you're looking after your well-being
so others are going to benefit from that
and you benefit yourself.
Well I've always kind of put on the brave face.
I think it's - and it's the people that can show their feelings
that are really the strong ones not the ones that suffer in silence.
I believe that you know if somebody sets the goals
you know it's like kind of for me it has to be a realistic goal
and you know I would encourage them to
have a realistic goal as well.
Breathing techniques - that was really good just to bring into myself.
Well in the morning I'll wake up and I'll tell myself
I'm going to have a brilliant day
and some other personal positive stuff
and I'll do the same at night time you know
and I think the more you tell yourself something
the more it starts to become reality.
It's made me think - turn what might seem a negative thing,
things that I think I can't do this to turning it round to say,
yes I can do that
and if you turn it into something positive you can do it.
There are things you can do to help yourself and again
it might be joining a yoga class for example.
You know take off you know find a place that's
nice for you to walk if you're able to walk.
Tai Chi these are all things that can help. Swimming as well.
You know if you can swim or learn to swim
it's a really - these are good things.
It kind of helps quieten the mind and your mind's a bit quieter.
You can see things a bit clearer.
Find something that you like to do.
Just become a better person and
I'm much more confident. I know how to deal with stress.
I know how to deal with my worries.
I just want to enjoy my life every day
and yeah there is going to be stresses in it
but I'll deal with it now.
Stress management's about bringing balance to
the physical, mental and emotional aspects of who you are.
When we're struggling with stress we sometimes blame ourselves
for not being able to cope and even worse
we punish ourselves for feeling weak and vulnerable.
This is the time when we need to stop thinking so negatively
and start accepting the good things about ourselves.
It's about believing in our own personal strengths
and remembering that we are resourceful individuals
and that nine times out of 10 we can cope with what life throws at us.
It's also about accepting that sometimes you can't
control what's happening around you
but what you can control is how you feel about yourself
and how you take care of yourself.
If you do this then your problems won't seem so bad
or at the very least you'll feel that you can cope with them.
Often when we get overwhelmed we look at a problem in its entirety
and we forget that we can break it down into small manageable pieces.
For example we might not be able to stay
in a particular situation for the next 10 years
but we can cope with the idea that we can hang on for another six months.
When we think like that we give ourselves six months
to find a better solution.
Another example is that an unexpectedly big bill comes in
that you don't have the money to pay for
but if you phone up and explain your situation
you might be able to come to an arrangement where you
can pay back in instalments over the next 12 months.
Rather than leaving a problem to build up
it's better to take small manageable steps towards solving it.
Many people feel that they should be able to cope with their problems
on their own no matter how big their problems have become.
They think they shouldn't turn to or burden their friends or family.
In this DVD we encourage people to take good care of themselves
and to get support from the people who care about them
so that they can feel stronger and more
capable to do better in their everyday lives.
People can feel embarrassed or ashamed
when they realise they need support from places like Stress Centres
and instead of getting help they struggle on in silence.
Times have changed and more and more people accept that stress
is a contributory factor to illnesses such as heart disease, cancer
and mental health issues. Stress affects everyone.
People can and do talk openly about being stressed
and friends and family are far more sympathetic
and understanding than you might think.
There are often ways through problems that you can't see
because you've become so stressed out and so anxious
and worried but other people will be able to support you in that process.
For some people you know just having friends around
and family that you feel that you can trust.
You know that can be a help.
The other thing that I learnt was to ask for what you want
and not just assume that people know
that that's what you want.
I found that really difficult because I've always thinking
I have to cope on my own, I have to do it on my own and I don't.
Sometimes instead of looking after ourselves
we sacrifice things that make us happy
because we think that's what we have to do.
This ultimately makes us more stressed.
For instance not spending time relaxing with our family and friends
because we've got too many things to do
or not buying a favourite magazine because money's tight.
We need to balance things out and make sure we're happy.
Talking to your friends and family or buying that magazine
will give you a couple of hours freedom from your stresses
and that might be enough to help you feel more optimistic
about finding a solution.
I'd probably listen to music or I would just think about like a football match.
I thought that my life revolved around my family
so keeping them happy was keeping me happy and it doesn’t do that.
You've got to be happy within yourself so that it makes your family happy.
Now I don't pound myself for things now whereas before the littlest thing
I gave myself such a hard time because I never got it right first time
you know and you cannot get everything right in life you know so
I try now to take it as it comes.
For me it's taking a walk, going on the bike.
It's just going to the pictures,
reading about - picking on a book anything
that could take my mind off whatever I'm feeling down about.
Read some books because I think sometimes when you read
you know books then you don't feel so alone
because you can see that if you can't talk to somebody
then you might find the answer
you know in a book.
Take time out and
and learn about what your feelings are you know
and don't be embarrassed to say you know I need
time for myself and don't be ashamed because
we all need time for ourselves.
You need to stop, take a step back
and look after yourself and that's what I done.
Well I've started to become very aware of how I feel
and I'm starting to take care of me inside
which is something I've never done.
I'm a terrible eater. I eat well fast foods,
fatty foods, sweets.
Healthy food actually helps as well towards stress so
kind of changed my diet a bit and I've been doing a lot more exercises.
If you feel stressed just do the things you like.
To have a bath or put all your candles on
just sit in a nice relaxed environment in your own home.
You don't feel threatened or afraid or anything
and just chill out and just relax in the time you have,
with nay stresses, naybody at you.
Often people don't think that they deserve to be listened to
or that the person that they want to talk to is too busy to listen
or not interested in hearing what they have to say.
But if you don't ask you won't know what other people are thinking
and they won't get the chance to be there for you
to support you and be trusted by you.
Talking about a problem with someone you care about can really help.
It just takes a wee bit of courage to open up
and admit that you need some help.
If you're the kind of the person that's always doing something for others
it can be difficult to accept that you may need
someone to do something for you but sometimes you do.
If it's a relationship issue with your partner or
a family member or a close friend
it's not always easy to keep our emotions out of it
but if we can it can really help.
When we decide to talk someone
here's a few things you might want to think about.
When the problem's been spoken about that's
the first step taken to solving it.
But if you're you know willing to be open and honest
with people it enables them to do the same
and you - it's much easier to find a realistic solution
that you can both work towards and maintain
if it's coming from an honest basis.
Well I'm the kind of person that keeps it to myself.
Maybe if I did now kind of talk to other folk it
probably would have helped but I'm like the person -
I kept it to myself that way nobody else would be worried or stressed.
But it's learning to deal with it and
kind of talking about it because it does help.
I'm confronting things in a different way.
I've got a different approach and I'm not making as a big deal
you know I'm approaching things in a different - a totally different -
a different place.
My relationships with people
since I've got cleaned of drugs have dramatically improved
and knowing that their trust and everything, their honesty and
respect, all of that stuff's coming back now.
I have got more time for my kids than I've ever had.
I'm not selfish anymore I can even say sorry.
You know I struggled to say sorry you know
because I just thought everybody wouldn't.
The relationships with my kids are
- it's great now it really is.
My relationships with my friends are better.
If you're working and you're stressed it's much more likely
to affect your ability to do your job properly.
It's even harder to think about applying for jobs
or going to interviews if your confidence is low.
If you deal with the issues that are stressing you out
your self-esteem and your self-confidence
gets higher if you manage your stress positively.
How you to interact with people at work can be less difficult
and the knock on effect can be that you start to enjoy your work again
or can begin to think about getting back into work.
I like getting up in morning. I like going into work.
I enjoy working.
You know away with the kids it's just a fantastic job
but with the stress made it such a difficult thing for me to do.
No I think I'm definitely employable.
I think I've got a lot of qualities you know and a lot of strengths.
I think maybe it just maybe took somebody to point them out
to me and for me to kind of see it.
But I think now that I'm clean of drugs and
now that I'm dealing with my stress and dealing with my issues
and talking about my emotions and feelings knowing
being kind of self-aware about who I am and
that stuff like that now I kind of know where I want to go now.
Sometimes we can't cope on our own and we need to realise that's it okay
to turn to friends and family for support.
At other times talking to our loved ones just isn't an option
and it doesn't make us feel any better about our situation.
There are times in our lives when we can't cope on our own
because our problems are so serious
and we need professional help.
There are lots of different organisations in
North Glasgow that can help.
Depending on the problems you're facing and how they affect you,
there are a range of local agencies that can help.
The contact details of these agencies are both at the end of this DVD
and on the cover of this DVD.
For example if you've money or debt problems
you can contact the local Money Advice or Welfare Rights offices
or the Citizens Advice Bureau.
If you've a problem that requires legal advice
there are legal advice centres in your area.
If you're a carer for somebody with a disability,
mental health or a range of other problems
there are local services which can offer you support and help.
There are addiction services for those with drug or alcohol issues.
These are only some of the support services available locally.
There are also others that cover a wide range of support needs.
If you find that the problems have reached a stage where you're having
real difficulty coping
on a mental, physical and emotional level
then you can contact one of the local Stress Centres
or the Crisis Centre at Lifelink.
If you need to attend for this kind of support
you'll be met by an experienced therapist
and be given the opportunity to talk confidentially about your problems
and discuss what kind of support and help the centres can offer you.
When it came to the point that I wanted to die basically
because I couldn't cope that's when I knew I had to get help from someone.
Seek help, don't do it on your own.
Don't sit back and think that someone's
going to come to you because they don't.
If you really want the help go out, there's help there.
You know you feel as if the whole world's against you, they're not,
there's help out there if you're willing to look for it.
We encourage you to get help when you need it
and to realise there's nothing wrong with using the professional resources
that are here for you within the North Glasgow community.
You know there's so much out there that can help you and
when it changes your life it gives you - opens up a big new world for you.
Just ask your GP, ask your health visitor,
ask anyone that's there any professional person that's
that maybe put you in touch with someone that can help you but just ask.
Just talk about your stuff, talk about your feelings,
all your emotions and all that.
It doesn't really - it doesn't make you weak.
Just showing a bit of vulnerability kind of shows you're human
you know what I mean and I don't think it's anything to be ashamed of.
Anyone that has suffered the same as me, talk about it.
I didn't for nearly 40 years of my life I just hid it
and thought no one would understand
and no one would listen. But wow has it changed my life.
I don't think about it anymore.
I would recommend the best thing to do is talk about it.
That's my advice and the best cure for it is communication.
We hope you find this DVD useful
and that you feel better able to deal with the things
in your life that are stressing you out.
We hope that if you need to, you'll feel more able
to seek professional help.