Stress affects many people. Here you can find out a bit more about it and learn what you can do to cope.

What Is Stress?

Stress comes from something called the ‘fight or flight response’, an animal response that protects us from physical danger. If we are in an extremely stressful situation our bodies produce chemicals to either help us leave the situation (flight) or give us the energy and ability to be able to cope with it (fight). If it turns out that the situation is not life-threatening, this is a false-alarm and the chemicals are not used. Lots of these false-alarms (because we are experiencing a lot of stressful situations) are not good for our health and can lead to conditions such as high blood pressure, heart disease, insomnia and migraines.

What Causes Stress?

Many things can cause stress including work, school, college or university. Relationships and money problems can also be factors. Major life events such as divorce, moving home (or moving out of home) or bereavement can also be causes.

Your own personality may be more easily stressed than others. It could be  your physical environment or surroundings that makes you stressed. Maybe where you work is very noisy and it’s hard to get some peace to concentrate, or your neighbourhood is unsafe. Almost anything can cause stress if it is difficult to cope with.

What Are The Symptoms Of Stress?

These can include:

• Headaches
• Breathing quicker
• Palpitations (an irregular, rapid or hard heartbeat)
• Sweating more than usual
• Dizziness
• Fainting
• Tiredness
• Stomach problems
• Crying
• Feeling restless and on edge
• Irritability
• Pain and stiffness in your muscles

How Can Stress Be Treated?

Stress can be managed by working out what is causing us to feel this way and if possible changing this. This could include eating well, exercising, drinking less caffeine, becoming more assertive or changing jobs.

Treatment can include going to your GP, counselling, medication, self-help groups and alternative and complementary therapies. 

Is There Anything I Can Do To Help Myself?

• If you start to feel stressed, take a few minutes to go away and calm down and relax
• Write down what’s stressing you out; this may help you to think about what you can do about it
• Talk to family and friends about what's stressing you.
• Eat a healthy balanced diet
• Exercise, even a little can boost your mood and help you feel calmer
• Make sure you take time to relax, a little time off now is better than lots of time off because your stress gets too much too cope with
• Do things you enjoy
• Learn time or money management, or problem-solving skills

You can call Breathing Space on 0800 83 85 87, Monday to Thursday 6pm to 2am, Friday 6pm through to Monday 6am.  It's a free and confidential service.

More...

Exams can be one of the most stressful things we go through. You can work hard throughout the year, but everything seems to hang on how you do in those couple of hours. The pressure to do well can be difficult to handle.

For information about how to keep calm at exam time have a look at our Exam Stress Factsheet.

You could also visit BBC Brainsmart for lots of tips on managing exam stress and revising effectively.