In our last blog article we discussed the physiology of stress - what stress is, what happens in our bodies when we become stressed, physical and emotional symptoms of stress, and the 3 different stress response types. Here we move on to exploring the common causes of stress and provide helpful tips for stress management, both for the individual and for employers.

Common Causes of Stress

If you’ve read our previous article, you should now be in a better position to spot the symptoms of stress - in your body, thoughts, feelings and emotions. And this is half the battle. You may now be less likely to panic and can approach stressful situations more rationally, better equipped to understand the cause(s) of your stress and able to begin taking the necessary steps to alleviate your symptoms. So, why might you be stressed?

You might have guessed, but the number 1 cause is work related stress, with Statista reporting that 79% of employees experience this form of stress at least once a month, this figure rising to 90% for the 18-24 age range.

According to Neuroworx the top 5 causes of stress in the UK in 2023 are:

Work: 39%
Financial worries: 34%
Family responsibilities: 29%
Health concerns: 28%
Social life and social media: 26%

How to Manage Stress

Actions for the individual

While there is no magic cure for reducing stress, here are some effective ways to get started:

1) Identify your stressors

Take some time to consider what tends to set stress off for you. Note that stress is often to do with change or loss in our lives, and could likely fit into the following situations:

Work problems
Financial issues
Relationship problems
Health worries
Bereavement
Poor diet and/or sleep
Divorce/separation
Illness or accident
Discrimination

It is also worth remembering that even ‘happy’ events such as marriage, moving home, a promotion at work or having kids can also increase stress, as these still involve a change in our lives and introduce a certain level of unpredictability in the near or distant future.

2) Consider your thinking patterns

Step back and notice if your thoughts are a little disordered or negative? Do they reflect the facts of a situation or are they emotionally influenced? Making an effort to become aware of unhelpful thoughts and challenging their validity can help to break the stress cycle and is a key aim within cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). Balancing thoughts into a more realistic perspective is not easy but has a positive impact on reducing stress. Developing compassion for yourself in your thinking has big benefits and is an ever-growing area of research.

Practicing some form of mindfulness is another way to unhook from thoughts whilst introducing a focus on the present moment. It’s not about getting rid of thoughts but acknowledging and allowing them so that they take a back seat. This doesn’t necessarily have to involve a subscription to Headspace or similar apps; we will all have moments when the environment takes our attention away from our troubles. Nature is the most obvious place to get away from it all and soak up the scenery and wildlife. We can also practice mindfulness in our gardens and our houses by having an intention to come out of our thinking for a short while and simply focus on our daily actions or our hobbies. The 87% app is a great place to find short meditation exercises.

3) Breathe

Always at the top of any stress management protocol is to understand and manage your breathing. One of the key pieces of information that our primitive emotional brain will use to understand that we are not under threat is when our prefrontal cortex (our rational mind) takes control and overrules the stress response when we choose to slow the breath down, effectively putting on the brake.

Check out our 5 Helpful Breathing Techniques.

4) Problem solving techniques

When stressed we may experience brain fog and our concentration, memory and reasoning skills feel limited. Problem-solving is a useful way to return to some form of ordered thinking by giving our mind a framework to work with. Clarify what the specific problem is and brainstorm possible solutions. After listing the pros and cons of each option, choose one to put into action.

5) Build regular exercise into your life

We know it’s cliché but exercising (in whatever way you fancy) gets your blood circulating and your breathing adapting to the need for oxygen, balancing the levels in your blood. It discharges tension in your muscles and helps the body unwind.

Exercise also includes stretching and flexibility - yoga is a fantastic way to release tension in the muscles by stretching. It also encourages a slowing and deepening of breath in ways that mediate the stress response.

6) Make time to spend with others

Connection and engaging with other humans (and our pets) stimulates our resting social engagement system, our ventral vagus nerve, that signifies contentment, safety, cooperation, security and healthy relaxation. This is the complete opposite to the stress response, and research shows that caring creates resilience. Plan time for this to make sure it happens.

7) Relaxation

To feel relaxed our heart and breathing rate needs to switch down into a mode of calm and soothing slowness, when our mind will also be more settled. Water helps some – perhaps a warm (but not hot) bath with relaxing bath oil to stimulate our sense of smell will soothe. Reading something you’re interested in also helps as it requires us to sit calmly and quietly, but make sure it’s not a thriller! And don’t forget music can be a great mood changer, so keep your favourite music playing.

8) Eat and Sleep well

Maintaining a healthy, balanced diet and getting 8 hours of good quality sleep every night is not always easy to do when you’re busy and stressed, but these are the two non-negotiable fuels for your body if you want it to function well. These both provide a strong foundation that helps protect you from ill physical and mental health.

See our range of articles on stress. For specific advice to address the top 2 causes of stress (work and finances), see our advice on how to wind down from work, how to reduce work related stress and how to cope with financial stress.

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Actions for employers

Awareness of and discussions around work related stress are ever-increasing, especially in the aftermath of a global pandemic. Employers are starting to invest more money into employee wellbeing, typically through EAPs, in a bid to reduce work related stress. However, rates of burnout and work related stress are still increasing, so clearly something is going wrong somewhere and the current approach is failing people.

Our advice for employers is to re-think how they approach employee wellbeing. With services like EAPs, business leaders simply have no way of knowing if their wellbeing strategy is actually working; they are throwing money at a broken, reactive model of wellbeing. At 87% we instead advocate a preventive model of wellbeing. The focus here is on building better mental health rather than merely tackling mental ill-health. Through proper measurement of wellbeing, business leaders no longer have to fly blind when it comes to investment in wellbeing services.

Harnessing real wellbeing data from employee self-assessment, they uncover the previously unknown severity of issues such as work related stress in their organisation. They learn which audiences are most stressed and receive recommendations to reduce work related stress, drive better performance and improve workplace culture.

Book a personal demo with us and see how we can reduce work related stress in your organisation.