International Stress Awareness Week

What is stress?

According to the NHS, stress is the body’s way of coping when under pressure or feeling threatened. Not only is it common but it can motivate or help us to achieve things. However, too much stress can negatively affect mood and cause anxiety. Over time, this can lead to physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion commonly referred to as burnout. (1) In 2018/19, the total number of working days lost to work-related stress, depression, or anxiety was 12.8 million days, which equates to 54% of all working days lost due to ill health and a rate of 1,800 per 100,000 workers. (2)

International Stress Awareness Week 2020

Organised by the charity arm of the International Stress Management Association (ISMAUK), this year’s focus is on managing stress and mental health issues in the age of COVID-19. A study by the Office for National Statistics (3) found that:

• Nearly one in five adults were likely to be experiencing some form of depression during the Coronavirus pandemicNearly 85% of adults said their wellbeing was being affected by feeling stressed or anxious
• Experts from across the globe will take part in a week of broadcasts, webinars and keynote presentations as part of the Global Stress & Wellbeing Summit. You can find out more about the five-day online summit here.

What are you doing for International Stress Awareness Week?

The great news is there’s still time to organise wellbeing activities for your company during International Stress Awareness Week. We have a whole series of services geared for Stress Management, such as Stress Management, Resilience and Relaxation Techniques Workshops. If you want to reduce stress in the long term, we have company wellbeing days, employee wellbeing programmes and corporate wellbeing workshops designed to help reduce stress and increase productivity.

Mental health: “Fantastic workshop on the introduction to mental wellbeing! All participants thoroughly enjoyed and found the session interactive and insightful!” Georgia Allen Barton

Yoga: “Nisha and team have given us a great mix of relaxing, stretching, sweaty yoga sessions after work that’s just brilliant to reset our mind and body.” Christian Bergara, Manager Essence

Wellbeing: ” The wellbeing webinar Melissa delivered was amazing, the advice and tips we received were incredibly useful.” Louise Bown

Is your company working from home? We’re still on hand to help. We’ve moved many of our workshops online to help keep your team motivated and connected. 

“We have been using Joyful Living for over two years for massages…however, more recently we have been taking advantage of their Online Yoga for staff as we are all working from home during this crisis. This is keeping everyone connected and motivated!” Lucy Harrison

To find out more, check out our online corporate wellbeing programmes.

References

(1) https://www.nhs.uk/oneyou/every-mind-matters/stress/

(2) https://isma.org.uk/facts-about-stress

(3) https://isma.org.uk/isma-international-stress-awareness-week