Technology can help you feel less stressed!

The Stress Management Society (SMS) describes stress as “primarily a physical response. When stressed, the body thinks it is under attack and switches to ‘fight or flight’ mode, releasing a complex mix of hormones and chemicals such as adrenaline, cortisol and norepinephrine to prepare the body for physical action. This causes a number of reactions, from blood being diverted to muscles to shutting down unnecessary bodily functions such as digestion." 

Our cavemen ancestors used this physical response when they were in danger of getting savaged by sabre tooth tigers. Office workers don’t have much in common with cavemen. However, you could view deadlines and copious amounts of emails as our sabre-toothed tigers. Deadlines, emails and trying to do too many tasks at once brings on stress.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) reported that in 2015-16 that more than 11 million working days were lost to stress alone. You'll be glad to know that there are lots of simple "hacks" that can make it easier for you to cope with stress and get your work done on your computer, at the same time. 

Check out our tech advice on the links below:

• Thirteen easy ways of destressing your life
• Reducing workplace stress after a stroke
• Find writing stressful? Use Windows 10 voice recognition instead!

Here are six quick ways of helping you destress yourself. 

• Use a meditation app to take some time out to calm your mind
• Help me chill has a great playlist of calming ambient music. Really useful for when you need to get work done, or just to shut out the outside world
• Headspace is a great app that will allow you to understand the basics of meditation
• Have problems completing tasks? Why not use Drop Manager to aid your task management? 
• Podcasts are very popular and there are several on the subject of anxiety and how to cope with it.
• Natural readers can take the stress out of reading text. Just sit back and listen!

AbilityNet is  pleased to support the International Stress Awareness Day, taking place on Wednesday 1 November 2017

How can we help?

AbilityNet provides a range of services to help disabled people and older people with technology and communications.

• Call our free Helpline on 0800 269 545 and our friendly, knowledgeable staff will offer one-to-one help.
• If you are in work your employer has a responsibility to make Reasonable Adjustments which include helping you with invisible illnesses. Find out more about how we help disabled in the workplace.
• Arrange a home visit from one of our amazing AbilityNet ITCanHelp volunteers. They can come to your home, or help you over the phone.
• We have a range of factsheets which talk in detail about technology that might help you, which can be downloaded for free. You may find our factsheets talking about computers and vision impairment useful
• My Computer My Way is our free interactive guide to all the accessibility features built into current desktops, laptops, tables and smartphones.