It’s national stress awareness day!

IT’S National Stress Awareness Day today – and Warrington Borough Council’s public health team is promoting ways to deal with work-related stress.
Stress at work is a significant issue. In 2014/15, 440,000 people in the UK reported work-related stress at a level they believed was making them ill. That’s 40 per cent of all work-related illness.
Sometimes stress at work can be the result of the work environment, harassment, or bullying. The mental health charity Mind has a section on its website for employers on “taking care of your staff”, which focusses on promoting employees’ mental wellbeing.
Both the Health and Safety Executive and ACAS provide information and advice about what action organisations should take if their employees are experiencing stress at work due to harassment, bulling or the work environment.
Cllr Maureen McLaughlin (pictured) , the council’s lead member for public health and wellbeing, said: “Some stress can be beneficial, as it can help to motivate us to reach targets or achieve goals. But excessive or prolonged stress can have a serious, negative impact on both our physical health and our mental health.
“It’s not always possible to avoid stress at work, but there are simple things we can all do to reduce stress, or enable ourselves to cope with it better.”
Make Time, Warrington’s mental wellbeing campaign, launched in May, encourages people to look after themselves by increasing the frequency of “feel good” activities in their everyday lives.
Visit Warrington’s mental health awareness website happyoksad.org.uk, which has links to information about looking after your wellbeing  and directories of mental health support services.