What Is Stress And Anxiety

What Is Stress And Anxiety

  • This might sound like a simple question that anyone could answer, but when you take a closer look at stress and anxiety, it can be quite a complex matter. Every person will suffer from Stress and Anxiety in a different way, that’s why it’s important to know the signs and be able to see the signs in yourself. The sooner you can spot the symptoms of stress and or anxiety the better.
  • Stress and Anxiety is split in to 4 main categories:
    • Physical Symptoms
    • Thinking Based Symptoms
    • Emotional Symptoms
    • Behavioural Changes


“Table curtesy of NHS Foundation Trust”


  • What symptoms would you assiciate with the following:
  • Fire on board
  • Accident at home
  • Poor diet
  • Dealing with an aggressive crew member
  • Lack of exercise
  • To much social media
  • Bad weather conditions

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SMHW – Phisical Wellbeing

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SMHW – Making Life At Sea Enjoyable

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SMHW – Self Help

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SMHW – Real Time Pressure

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SMHW – Recognising Stress And Anxiety

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Introduction – The Main Causes Of Poor Mental Health

The Main Causes Of Poor Mental Health

Loneliness

Loneliness can occur when a person feels detached from others and finds it difficult to keep themselves busy. Even when given the opportunity to occupy yourself with a task, you may feel unwilling to want to do it. If you feel the effects of loneliness, it’s important to keep your mind busy, even with tasks you may not particularly like doing.

Ramaining in contact through social media, taking photos of places you visit to be able to share with friends and family wither through social media or when you get home.

Separation From Your Family

This can be very difficult as a seafarer because of the time spent separated from your family. It’s important to remind yourself of your Purpose, Goals, and Achievements. For Example:

Visiting interesting locations around the world, ship handling experience, achieving master ticket, experience, learning languages etc.

Stress / Anxiety

Stress occurs most commonly when a person’s workload exceeds what they are capable of handling. Stress is quite dangerous because it acts like a boost to Poor Mental Health which is the opposite to what we want to achieve.

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Introduction – Easy Ways To Improve Mental Health

Easy Ways To Improve Mental Health

Do more of what makes you happy:

Even if you don’t feel like doing it… give it a try, you’ll be surprised at how rewarding it can feel. For example; Reading a book, watching films, exercising etc.

Keep learning new skills:

Set goals… when a new problem arises, look for the positive side. Solving a new problem means you’ve just learned a new skill! For example; Fixing broken equipment, participating in a new activity etc.

Connect with people:

You can’t escape someone if you don’t like them… Especially when you’re on the same ship as they are and in the middle of the ocean. Take some time to talk with that person and try to find things you have in common. Understand that everyone is different and you can’t change other peoples behavior, but you can change your behavior and how you want to continue to act or riact to situations.

Give to others:

Making other people happy can, in turn, make you happy too. Passing on your knowledge to new crew, the use of words such as “Thank you” and “Good morning”.

Be physically active:

Regular physical activity and keeping healthy plays a key role in someone’s Mental Health. ‘Flow Activities’ are a great way to stay active. We will cover ‘Flow Activities’ in a later module.

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Introduction – What Is Mental Health?

What is Mental Health?

  • Mental health does not always mean that there is an illness involved, however, in some extreme cases, the effects of mental health can affect people in such a way that they start to feel physically ill. The resulting outcome of this means under-performing at work or even becoming unable to work at all.
  • Due to the possible effects of Poor Mental Health, the workplace can become very dangerous if the person that is struggling with a Mental Health issue is left untreated or receives no help.
  • Seafaring is one of the most physically demanding professions whilst in one of the most dangerous work environments. That’s why understanding Mental Health and being able to spot the signs is extremely important for all seafarers alike.
  • Seafaring is the second most dangerous type of job in the world. The work fatality rate for seafaring is 84 deaths per 100,000 workers. The couse of death is usually due to bad weather conditions, accidents, or machinery failure.
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SMHW – Introduction

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