Stress Awareness Month April 2022

Stress Awareness Month takes place each April to raise awareness of the causes and cures for our modern stress epidemic. The last two years have been the most challenging we have faced and in 2020, mental health services experienced unprecedented demand from people struggling and seeking support.

What is Stress?

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where your to-do list seems endless, deadlines are fast approaching and you find yourself saying ‘Eek! I feel stressed!’? But what is stress really, and how does it affect us?

When your body goes into a state of stress, we may feel agitated and aggressive towards others, which is very normal.

Some of us avoid our stressors, and remove ourselves from the difficulties facing us instead of challenging it head on. In life, this response can lead to a stressful situation escalating, and increase our stress levels when we realize that the stressor is not going away and we need to face it.

How to stop stressing too much?

Socialising with others has multiple benefits for our mental health.  Whether it’s a sport, hobby classes or volunteering, activities like these all give meaning and purpose to our lives and make us more confident.  Having the opportunity to laugh and chat with others in social situations serves to temporarily distract us from our worries by turning our focus outwards instead of inwards.  And being able to talk through problems and share our worries with others decreases our stress levels.  As the saying goes, a worry shared is a worry halved, and less worry equals less stress.

What Highgrove Leisure Centre can offer to you to make you feel happy and involved?

A healthy community is a happy community. And that’s why we’re working to create better health across the country through our Healthy Communities initiative. By joining forces with us, you can help to boost the wellbeing of your community through physical, mental and social activity.

Join our fitness classes; be it Yoga/Pilates or any mindfulness class, bringing your focus back to your breathe and revisit living in the moment to forget the stress’s of life. Maybe it is a power pump, our full body weights and toning workout, crushing the stress with every muscle fibre in your body. Or even riding to the beat of your favourite tunes in our group cycle classes.

A gym workout with a buddy, letting go of the frustrations of day to day life, or tuning out the world for a heart pumping cardiovascular session in the pool or on a treadmill.

Whatever you choose to escape your stress, we have something for everyone at Highgrove Pool and Fitness Centre