How full is your Stress Bucket?
Do you ever feel like the stress is piling up, making it harder and harder to cope?
The Stress Bucket metaphor is a simple way to visualise how we can manage stress in our daily lives. At acet UK, our schools’ workers have used this concept in their Esteem sessions with young people to help them understand emotional resilience.
Since April is Stress Awareness month, it’s the perfect time to check in with ourselves.
What’s a Stress Bucket?
Imagine your stress is like water filling a bucket. Every challenge, pressure, or worry—whether it’s work deadlines, family issues, or feeling overwhelmed—adds more water.
Luckily, our buckets have taps to let the water drain. These taps represent healthy coping strategies, like taking a break, exercising, talking to someone or doing something relaxing.
But we need to be careful, because unhealthy coping strategies (like substance use or lashing out) don’t drain the water. Instead, they act like a hose, pouring stress right back in.
Keeping your bucket from overflowing
To stop stress from overwhelming us and spilling out we can:
Make our buckets bigger
Build resilience by improving our physical health, strengthening relationships, and maintaining a stable living/working environment.
Reduce the water flowing in
This could mean things setting boundaries, lowering the number of commitments you have, or addressing conflicts before they escalate.
Add more taps
Find new, healthy coping strategies, like mindfulness, hobbies, or spending time with loved ones.
All of these can help to keep our buckets at a manageable level, so they don’t spill over.
Take a moment to reflect—what’s adding water to your bucket? And what taps can you turn on today?
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