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50<br />
<strong>St</strong>ress and Anxiety<br />
Are you feeling stressed and anxious about the future?<br />
During the pandemic, we are experiencing more stress and<br />
anxiety than ever before. This is caused by uncertainty and<br />
ever-changing information. According to the mental health<br />
charity Mind, 60% of adults said their mental health became<br />
worse during lockdown.<br />
<strong>St</strong>ress and anxiety can manifest itself in many different<br />
ways. Physical symptoms can include an increased<br />
heart rate or muscle tension, ‘jelly’ legs or tingling in the<br />
hands and feet, breathing too heavily or dizziness. You<br />
may experience feelings that you might lose control,<br />
faint, think people are looking at you and noticing your<br />
anxiety. Dave Smithson from Anxiety UK says “Those who<br />
are usually outgoing may become withdrawn or those<br />
who are reserved may become erratic.<br />
Everyone is different and anxiety can<br />
be triggered by a range of things.”<br />
Other symptoms can include<br />
lack of concentration,<br />
catastrophic thoughts,<br />
poor memory, excessive<br />
alcohol intake, under<br />
or overeating, a short<br />
temper and tearfulness.<br />
A key indicator is<br />
blowing things out of<br />
proportion. As Lorraine<br />
Collins, psychodynamic<br />
counsellor, psychotherapist,<br />
Cognitive Behavioural Therapist<br />
and member of the British<br />
Association for Counselling and<br />
Psychotherapy (BACP), says<br />
“If you’re stressed, how you<br />
view situations can become<br />
altered and distorted due<br />
to the brain not being able<br />
to process information in<br />
a more balanced way. It<br />
can also be a cry for help<br />
in communicating distress<br />
that can be difficult to put into words, so is ‘acted out’ by<br />
slamming doors, banging around, road rage and so on.”<br />
If you are under threat of redundancy as a result of the<br />
pandemic, this is additional stress as a job provides selfesteem,<br />
purpose and a social network. Losing your job<br />
unexpectedly affects all this, so stress accumulates.<br />
Lorraine says “If there is a threat of redundancy, it’s quite<br />
normal to feel stressed and anxious about your security<br />
and future. It can be like a constant feeling of dread and<br />
impending doom. You may experience a sinking feeling<br />
in the stomach. There may be a tendency for catastrophic<br />
thoughts about what the future might hold.”<br />
If you are suffering from extreme stress, it may be difficult<br />
to recognise it. Lorraine advises checking your<br />
‘internal dialogue’, which will reduce the risk of<br />
stress and tension building up. By that she<br />
means asking yourself “Am I tired and<br />
wired?” as a kind of self-monitoring.<br />
“I often suggest to my patients<br />
to use the HALT method – am<br />
I hungry, angry, lonely or<br />
tired? Getting into the habit<br />
of addressing these things<br />
can help to monitor your<br />
levels of stress and keep a<br />
more balanced sense of wellbeing,”<br />
she says.<br />
How To Manage<br />
<strong>St</strong>ress and Anxiety<br />
The good news is there are<br />
plenty of practical and useful<br />
tools to manage anxiety and<br />
reduce stress:<br />
• Getting back into nature is a<br />
great way of calming your anxiety.<br />
This can be a local park, woodland,<br />
nature reserve or your garden.<br />
Lorraine says “You can practice<br />
naming what’s around you, the
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