Farmer Wants a Healthy Life
Farmer Wants a Healthy Life
The Ins and Outs of Stress
In this episode, West Wimmera Health Service's own Leanne Yew talks about stress. Leanne is WWHS's lead social worker. She shares her knowledge on stress, our responses to it and how long term stress can affect us. She also share her tips for managing stress and where to get help.
Interested in the topic and looking for more?
The WWHS social work and welfare department can help with a wide variety of things, including:
- Counselling for individuals, couples and families.
- Support for parenting, grief, trauma and crisis.
- Referral to services such as housing, employment and legal services.
- Help with Centrelink payments.
- Financial counselling and emergency relief.
- Support for child protection and from domestic violence.
For further details contact West Wimmera Health Service on (03) 5391 4222.
Leanne spoke a lot about what stress is and some tips to manage it. For more information check out:
Better Health Channel - Stress
Suicide Line Victoria - Feeling stressed out and how to get help
National Centre for Farmer Health - Stress
Stress can be hard to manage, and if it goes for a long time you may need to seek professional help. Some place you can go for this are:
- GP
- Counsellor
- Psychologist
- Rural Outreach program which you can reach at 1300 688 732. You can also hear more about this program in the episode 'From Footy Coach to Rural Outreach Worker'.
- Flying Doctor Wellbeing
You can also check out programs like:
Are you bogged mate?
You Got this Mate!
Leanne also spoke about how mindfulness and breathing exercises can help with stress. You can find the Smiling Mind program and app she spoke about here.
Join the conversation
Facebook: @FarmerWantsaHealthyLife Twitter: @_FWAHL
Facebook: @FarmerWantsaHealthyLife Twitter: @_FWAHL
BM
This is a West Wimmera Health Service podcast. Presented by me Brigitte Muir.
This series focuses around stories and issues related to health and wellbeing. Some of the people we hear from are sharing their stories, hoping that their experiences will help us with our own health and wellbeing. Please be aware that some of their life experiences may touch on issues that are sensitive to some. Please listen with care. You will find information on seeking help if you need it in the notes attached to each episode.
Oh gosh I am so stressed. Alright, then we know what that feels like don’t we. But what is stress and how do we reduce its effects on our lives? Leanne Yew is West Wimmera Health Service’s lead social worker and I met her at the Murtoa Community Centre to find out all about stress and a little bit about her too.
LY
I spent my first 18 years in the Wimmera, did study and travel, and all those things that as a young person you want to get out and do. About that 14 years later, I kind of dragged my husband back to the Wimmera. A lot of farming history in my family, however I did not grow up on the on the farm.
BM
Stress is something that a lot of people struggle with, regardless of their background, and it is something that I believe you come across a lot in your dealings with people in…in your social work.
LY
Hhmmm…
BM
What would be your advice to people on how to deal with stress?
LY
I guess the first thing is a little bit about stress, because we all I think a lot of us, or most of us know what the word stress is… like we've heard that word a lot…and I think we all know would say that we've experienced high levels of stress. Stress is a normal response, I just wanted to point that out as well. It's a good thing. It gets us moving however, when we have prolonged levels of stress, so we're sitting at a high level of stress, I, you know, I understand that when we've got issues of drought… pestilence, all those things like mice… locusts and things that I understand that can be very problematic… and, and weeds and all those things, put a lot of demands on people and you know, a lot of those things are of or to a certain extent, are out of people's control and having to manage those.
BM
That's life isn't it
LY
It is, that's right, exactly. And then, and then put on top of that you've got your family life …and your financial life… So in community life and all of those things, so that can be stressful for people.
With our stress response… normal response, our body’s set up in a way like if, if we compare this back to our maybe… our cave people… caveman or cave women, if they came across a Saber-toothed tiger that is a threat to their life, their body is… designed or our bodies are designed and we… we still carry this same design to automatically react to going ‘oh my goodness, I'm in danger. I could die here’. The body automatically reacts by releasing hormones cortisol and adrenaline. It kicks into automatic action to either run, or fight, or even freeze. That's where our body then reacts in a way where all this…our muscles are prepared to run, to fight, our heart rate increases…our stomach gets a bit funny. Because basically the bloods been taken away from our digestive system to start going to the muscles to prepare us to run or fight. Our brain gets foggy because we don't need this executive thinking up here to survive. It just needs to act, it's really split second. So we don't have Saber-toothed tigers today, but when our brain perceives a threat to that could be the threat of drought, when is it going to rain? When, you know, when is this going to break? Am I financially going to be able to manage this? Or…or all those stresses I have, of you know, a sick child in the family or whatever it might be. Our brains perceive that as a threat, it kicks us into that same system of fight, flight or freeze.
That's… with that system it is designed to… once that threat passes, it comes back to a normal level. However, if we're chronically stuck in that space, those hormones don't change that starts to potentially bring us problems in a sense of we can start seeing ourselves not sleeping properly, not eating properly, we might have been developed things like some anxiety ongoing, or even mental health issues like depression, things become hopeless can even actually affect our physical health in the sense of our cardiovascular …systems as well, so having you know, high blood pressure. So it's important that we do try to bring that system back down, as much as we can.
So what can people do? You know what, what do you do if your tractor is bogged? You might get a couple of mates to help you, get you out if it's only bogged a little bit. Thinking about that… some of the things that are really important for us is to stay, stay connected with our, with our friends, with our family, being able to… you know have some downtime and, and I… you know, I know on farms, I know in the farming life that there are periods of time where that can be difficult, but I guess the biggest thing here is ensuring health and enabling… trying to find some little time to you know, spend time with a mate, going fishing or you know, maybe going out or maybe that's at outside of harvesting or just getting grabbing, grabbing a time to sit down with a mate and have a chat, someone you trust, connecting and just getting a little bit help… help from other people. It could also be making sure we eat healthy you know, what we put into our body fuels our body, and if we're not putting anything in our body, that's obviously like a car that's a problem. If you don't put petrol in the car, we're not going to be running very well or at all probably.
Mindfulness is also a good thing not for everyone, but there's some apps out there. Smiling Mind is a good one, it's a free app that you can download and have some guided meditation and breathing exercises and the idea around that is to bring that system back down. Because if we can start to do things to bring our system down, our system will follow. It may seem like that's not gonna work. But it actually really does help, also acknowledge the fact that you're important and that you do need to look after yourself and sometimes… like this tractor that is bogged, sometimes the tractors bogged a bit too much. Sometimes you need to bring some bigger machinery in and that bigger machinery for us as people might be… speaking to a health professional, it could be talking to your doctor, sometimes there might be things going on in our body, our systems are a little bit out of whack as well. Sometimes it might be around… being connected with a counsellor or a psychologist, someone to actually talk with… to… maybe learn some more ideas of stress relief, stress management techniques, or even unpacking some of the stressors that are going on, and… and sort of when you're talking to someone can really help to lay it out, get it off the chest, get out of your head, and to be able to look at it with someone and actually look at are there some things that can be done to help this situation, or maybe it's about looking at it in a different way? Because sometimes we can get stuck in unhelpful ways of looking at things as well.
BM
And that unhealthy chatter in the head.
LY
Absolutely. Yeah. Some of those things we have…we have some good resources in our community, here in the Wimmera. So finding whatever it is… that resource to help people get back on more of an even par and starting to find joy in life, they've lost a little bit of that spark…
BM
Can I share with you something that really works for me……when I remember it?
LY
Yeah…
BM
When I need to get out of my head
LY
Absolutely
BM
A couple of things, first of all, stop… I think it's absolutely vital…
LY
Hhhhmmmm
BM
…to stop everything and breathe, and also trying to connect to your body rather than staying in your head. With me, putting my hand on my heart and breathing means that I'm able to ground myself and to… have that little window of time that allows me to look at things…. in a more balanced manner….
LY
Hhhmmm
BM
…without having to get on the blower and talk to someone or try to make an appointment to go and see someone just a little trick…that you can do when you're sitting on a tractor in the middle of nowhere.
LY
Yeah, absolutely and I think there's lots of things that we can put into our life that can really, really help us and each of us are going to find our own different way as long as we do stop and start to learn… what those ways are, because we can get so caught up in our society, or so caught up in what we need to do, that we keep pushing through just thinking if I get this done or if I can get this done, then then I'll, then I'll be able to stop and we can get cornered in a place that we never do. I think it can be really… really easy to not realise the cycle that you're in. So, yes, stopping …stopping and just taking note of where you are and what's going on for you. Slow and controlled breathing, you know, into, into the abdomen. So we're not talking about shallow breathing. We're talking about deep breathing an example of that is breathing in like for the count of four, holding for a count of two and then breathing out for a count of six, making that longer breath out. It actually slows our system down and with also the intention of helping us to be able to think better.
BM
That's a good trick that one
LY
…and also with grounding. Some people enjoy like… maybe taking their shoes off and grounding themselves to the earth and that feeling onto your feet… of being grounded to the earth, you know, to the to the soil or to the grass or whatever it is you're standing on. And the five… the five senses like listening, noticing what you can hear… noticing, noticing what you can smell, taste, touch, but that again brings us back to the current moment. And I think the things with, you know us being, us being stressed and this also relates to anxiety, which is very, you know, very close cousin is that we get so caught up worrying about the future. If we can bring ourselves back to the current moment. That's also going to be helpful for us.
BM
Is there anything else you would like to share with people about managing stress?
LY
The word shame… comes up to me when I think about talking about this as well, because I think also we, we come from a stock of people we just kind of think we can do this, you know, pull their socks up and get on with it, and I shouldn't be feeling this way. Where in actual fact our bodies are giving us a message and if we're feeling so bad inside because we're struggling with this chronic stress. We need to listen to our body… and we have limitations, all of us have limitations… and pushing ourselves beyond that we can't do any more.
BM
That's right and also there’s, there’s the cousin of shame, the guilt…
LY
Hhhmmm
BM
… of stopping and doing nothing.
LY
It's okay, to stop without having to have been doing something productive in that stop time. I do think we probably need to get that message out better, as a society as well that it's… it's okay, just to stop and to look after you, because you're the most important person, your family can't do without you. Your farm can't do without you. Your community can't do without you.
BM
It's not just okay, it's essential, isn’t it?
LY
Hhhhmmm…Like looking after your machinery on the farm, you don't look after it. You run it at a red line all the time. You know, just thinking about running your engine at redline all the time what's going to happen? If you're redlining this tractor all the time, what's going to happen? The biggest thing here is, again, you know if we're not giving ourselves a little bit of a window and it can be it can be five or 10 minutes if that's all you can afford.
BM
Thank you so much for sharing with people on the land.
LY
Thank you.
BM
That was a Leanne Yew talking about managing stress from home.
You will find us always contact numbers and details in the notes attached to this episode. And while you're at it, please give us a star rating. We'd also love to hear your comments and suggestions. Our Facebook and Twitter details are in the notes. Until next have a healthy life won’t you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai edited by WWHS Health Promotion Team.
