Stress is a natural reaction to pressure on you.

You need some stress and excitement in your life, it energises you and gives you a real buzz

Too much stress, or too often, can be a major problem, it can make you physically ill and it can really damage you mentally and emotionally.

It can affect every part of your life, both at work and at home. It is a major cause of poor health and contributes significantly to working days lost through illness.

Business Stress

Pressure at work is probably more responsible than any other factor for lost time and illness. The stress it causes triggers low morale and lack of motivation at every level of the work force. This not only creates severe day-to-day problems, including low productivity, high levels of wastage, poor quality of workmanship and high staff turnover, but companies can now be held responsible for the effects of stress on their employees.

Mental / Emotional symptoms of stress include:

• Frequent feelings of boredom or frustration
• Frequent crying, or wanting to cry
• Excessive anger
• Bad temper
• Anxiety or panic attacks
• Poor memory
• Lack of confidence
• Inability to concentrate
• Lack of motivation
• Insomnia or poor quality of sleep
• Nightmares
• Depression or mood swings
• Increased dependency on food, drugs, alcohol or smoking

Physical symptoms of stress include:

• Heart palpitations / chest pains
• Feeling sick or actually being sick
• Indigestion
• Eating problems
• Irritable Bowel Syndrome
• Sexual problems
• Migraine or headaches
• Frequent colds or cold sores
• Cold hands and feet
• Excessive perspiration / wet hands
• Aching neck and shoulder muscles