National Stress Awareness Day (NSAD) Wednesday, November 2nd, 2016

National Stress Awareness Day (NSAD)

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2016

The Theme for National Stress Awareness Day, Wednesday 2nd November 2016: “Workforce Wellness – Your Prime Investment”

Workplace Stress – Today’s Hidden Secret. Most employees won’t admit they’re stressed, because they think
it could harm their career prospects – according to latest research. To coincide with National Stress Awareness Day (NSAD) on Wednesday 2nd November 2016, new research from the International Stress Management Association UK (ISMAUK), the UK’s leading Stress Management charity, has revealed that two thirds of employees fear to admit that they are suffering from stress as they believe this could harm their career prospects. The survey also revealed that over half of those questioned feel unable to take time off work even when suffering from stress, as they felt they would be seen as incapable, have a black mark against their name or that this would be viewed as a weakness. Data from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), who support NSAD, shows that 9.9 million days are lost to workplace stress, depression and anxiety each year.( 1) Workplace stress contributes to poor health, low performance and financial loss, both to business and to individuals. To address this issue, ISMAUK created National Stress Awareness Day in 1998 to highlight the endemic incidence of stress throughout the community, and to show that companies which actively encourage resilience in their workforce regularly report improvement in morale and bottom-line results.

Carole Spiers, Chair of ISMAUK and founder of NSAD, commented “Our survey found that many employees are still reluctant to admit that they are experiencing the effects of stress. This adds to the difficulty of helping them to manage the damaging impact of such excessive pressure upon their health and performance.”
Spiers continues, “It is vital that stress in the individual is accepted as a mental health issue, both nationally and internationally. The company workforce is an organisation’s most valuable resource. It is difficult, if not impossible, to replace this human asset, which is why ‘workforce wellness’ is a major organisational imperative.”
To help avoid stress and find your natural SPEED, Carole Spiers has devised a 5-step plan:

Sleep Get plenty of it
Priorities Do what’s most important first
Empathy Find someone who’ll listen
Exercise Set a daily exercise goal
Diet Limit sugar and alcohol

Reference

1. HSE Labour Force Survey 2014/15http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/dayslost.htm

Publications

Download the new free ISMA Top Ten Steps To Stress-Free Living Download Now

Other ISMA guides