Stress - THE STATS

According to a report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) The "hidden cost" of employee sickness in the UK reached £103 billion in 2023.  Stress, depression or anxiety and musculoskeletal disorders accounted for the majority of days lost due to work-related ill health in 2023/24, 16.4 million and 7.8 million respectively.

ALAN Cohen has been a GP for over 20 years and is a Primary Health Advisor for the National Institute of Mental Health.  He states..“Stress is how the body reacts to external pressures that we perceive to be difficult, uncomfortable. It creates both physical changes in the body, sweating, or worry, or frustration, or anger....So common causes of stress are things like pressures at work, for example, pressures at home, pressures around money, pressures around employment, especially nowadays. When stress becomes bad for you, the commonest sort of feelings that one gets inside oneself is one of either anxiety and/or depression.You feel unable to manage things, unable to think clearly, everything becomes an effort, you're slowed up, as well as feeling on edge, unable to concentrate, tearful and a whole variety of these uncomfortable emotions. Often these are associated with physical symptoms as well. So you might get headaches, tummy ache, back ache, and one can describe these as being linked to the mental health problem because of the way the body works, it doesn't separate mind and body…..(Source NHS website)