5 Ways to Wellbeing for Stress Awareness Month
April is Stress Awareness Month, a chance to increase awareness of the causes and cures for our modern stress epidemic. Whether it’s work-life balance or juggling family pressures, we all feel stress and it can lead to feelings of overwhelm and increase mental health problems if we don’t address it.
I’ve had a stressful family time lately and I’m also booked in for my hip replacement this month so managing stress and the feeling that I can’t cope with challenging situations is important to me right now.
Understanding the pressures in our lives and then addressing the stress is key to getting back on an even footing. I like to remind myself of this advice from the charity Mind when stress levels are rising:
- Pause and take a moment
- Remember you are not alone
- These feelings won’t last forever
- Know that everything will be OK
- Ask for help
The painting course at Newlyn School of Art that I was so looking forward to, ended up becoming a bit stressful last month as the main tutor couldn’t be there and we battled gale-force winds – not ideal for outdoor landscape painting! We got by but there were times when I couldn’t hold my paper and my paint palette blew across a car park, not to mention the tide coming in and ruining my carefully thought-out composition! We adapted by finishing our painting in the studio (or the minibus) from photos we had taken and I was pleased with my final piece of work.
After the course, I enjoyed a calmer couple of days with a friend which included a gin-tasting afternoon in the sunshine in Penzance!
Before setting off for wild and windy Cornwall, I enjoyed running a sold-out Figure workshop at Ardington and a talk & demo for a Bedford textile group. Here I was more in my comfort zone of showing what Powertex can do as a fabric hardener and how to progress on to an array of creations.
As I look ahead to my few weeks of enforced inactivity, I’m going to think about my wellbeing and try to improve my resilience to help me cope with the challenges. Mind has ‘5 Ways to Wellbeing’ which are:
- Connect: I can use the time to get in touch with friends and family I haven’t spoken to for a while.
- Be Active: I’ll try to be really good at doing all the exercises I’m supposed to for getting myself mobile again.
- Keep Learning: I will investigate more interesting art courses that I could attend when I’m back on my feet.
- Give: I’ll use my time to think about how I can help people. This doesn’t need to be financial giving, it could be a little time or a thoughtful gesture.
- Take Notice: I will pay closer attention to my surroundings, appreciating the spring flowers, taking deep breaths and enjoying favourite music.
So, although there will undoubtedly be stressful times and frustrations in the coming weeks, I hope I will remember that those feelings won’t last forever and that everything will be OK in the end.
I look forward to being back on my feet and welcoming people to Powertex workshops at the Artistic ReTreats studio from June. Find out what I’ve got in store here: www.artisticretreats.co.uk
Photo by Luis Villasmil on Unsplash
