By Dr. Gbonjubola Abiri

The month of April is the Stress Awareness Month. A time set aside to pause and pay attention to something we all experience but sometimes do not understand. When many people describe stress, it is usually as the ‘bad guy’, ‘the enemy’ causing from as little as a recurrent cold to as severe as a heart attack. The conversation is also one of ‘escaping stress’, ‘demonising it’ and sometimes ‘managing it’.

Let’s take a look at Susan, a respected, upwardly mobile professional, who was known for her dedication, calm demeanor and efficiency. In recent times, she’s experiencing recurrent colds, headaches, extreme sense of fatigue and difficulty sleeping. She brushed it aside stating: ‘’it’s just pressure’’. The symptoms however didn’t disappear, until she started becoming unduly irritable, struggled to pay attention and concentrate, while watching motivation decline.

One day, realising that doing more didn’t appear to make things better, she asked a pertinent question: “Dear Stress, what information do you have for me?”

Stress is the body’s natural response to pressure, demand or challenge, be it physical, psychological or emotional. Stress is how the body and the mind react when something feels demanding, overwhelming or threatening. While stress is entirely normal, it may become chronic when the demands exceed the individual’s ability to cope. Initially, stress shows up quietly at first, appearing as irritability, sleep problems, comfort eating, constant fatigue, difficulty paying attention and concentrating.
When these happen initially, they are normal. Overtime however, the symptoms become signals and data, telling us: we are taking on too much, we need support, we need rest, we are ignoring ourselves and that we may be struggling silently. When stress is worn like a badge of honour, it doesn’t disappear but accumulates over time and starts to affect our relationships, quality of life, problem-solving and decision making skills as well as our physical health.

Stress can sometimes be helpful as it pushes us to prepare, to respond to challenges and to grow. Exposure to moderate stress helps improve focus and performance while chronic stress can become debilitating and distressing. Instead of trying to get rid of stress, I encourage that we change our relationship with stress by asking the following questions:

“What is stressing me right now?, What should I be doing more or less of?, Who can I talk to?”
Overtime, Susan learnt to delegate, to rest and to set boundaries around life and work. She also learnt that stress doesn’t always come to harm us, sometimes, it is here to let us know that it has information about us for us.
Remember there is no health without mental health.