15^th May: Start - 12:30 pm, Agriculture Building; Ground Floor

Often an overlooked and under appreciated aspect of doing a PhD is the continuous mental stress, long work hours and isolation. Thats why on the 15^th May the postgraduate representatives (PGR) have banded together to run an event specifically targeted towards mental health. This will involve activites and workshops aimed to help reduce stress:

• Come and relax with specially trained guide dogs
• Yoga for beginners classes
• Guided meditation
• Massage sessions
• Workshops on stress and resiliance
• Information stands run by - Student Wellbeing; Nightline; The University Gym.
• Refreshments will be provided

 For more information, please feel free to contact SNES.events@ncl.ac.uk, or follow this link.

Introduction

While we all know what it feels like to feel overwhelmed or unable to cope with the pressure we face, when it comes to research around stress, it can be surprisingly difficult to pinpoint what exactly ‘stress’ is.

At the most basic level, stress is our body’s response to pressures from a situation or life event (called a ‘stressor’). What counts as a ‘stressor’ can vary hugely from person to person and differs according to our social and economic circumstances, the environment we live in, our genetic makeup and physiology. Some common features of stressors include experiencing something new or unexpected, something that threatens your competence/ego, and a feeling of little control over a situation.

For many of us there are times when exposure to stressors become too frequent or too intense to deal with. If our stress response is activated repeatedly, or it persists over time without recovery periods, the physiological effects result in cumulative wear and tear on the body (or allostatic load) and can cause us to feel permanently in a state of ‘fight or flight’.Rather than helping us push through, this pressure can make us feel overwhelmed or unable to cope.  - Stress: Are we coping? Mental Health Foundation