relax us, our bodies will be better able to cope with and reduce stress. Encourage good sleeping and eating habits for children and ensure that children are physically active, spend time outside, and play with other children their age.
see challenges as opportunities to learn and grow. Children and youth can easily fall into negative thinking and thinking poorly of themselves, so help them change their negative thoughts into positive ones.
Mental Health Awareness Month: Managing...
In recognition of Mental Health Awareness during the month of May, USCRI recognizes the importance of prioritizing mental health as...
READ FULL STORYInternational Stress Awareness Week & National Stress Awareness Day
By: Rosalind Ghafar Rogers, PhD, LMHC, Clinical Behavioral Health Subject Matter Expert with USCRI’s Refugee Health Services in Arlington, VA
In recognition of International Stress Awareness week (Oct 30 to Nov 3) and National Stress Awareness Day (Nov 1), USCRI hopes to raise awareness about stress and its harmful effects, particularly in the lives of migrants, refugees, and displaced populations, and highlight the ways stress can be reduced and better managed.
Global forced displacement has reached unprecedented levels with the number of refugees fleeing their countries due to armed conflict surpassing 20 million in 2021 (UNHCR, 2021). In addition to potentially traumatic events in one’s homeland and during the migration journey, post-migration stressors exert a powerful influence on the physical and mental health of refugees, increasing the risk of both physical and mental illness and intensifying or prolonging the mental health effects of pre-migration trauma (Sim et al., 2023). Research has found that post-migration stressors, such as social isolation, barriers to accessing resources, discrimination, insecure residency status, and inadequate or unsafe housing, contribute just as powerfully to refugees’, migrants’, and displaced populations’ distress as the violence of war.
What is Stress?
Stress is a normal human reaction when we feel under pressure, overwhelmed, threatened, or unable to cope. Stress can be positive or negative. Short-term, mild stress can be positive because it keeps us alert, motivated, ready to avoid danger, and helps us rise to many challenges. Any situation we perceive as threatening or which requires us to adjust to change elicits the stress response and this is where the trouble begins because our body is not good at distinguishing between life-threatening events and day-to-day stressful situations. When the stress from a terribly threatening event, like war, is never fully switched off or when our body repeatedly experiences the stress response because of far less dangerous situations, like financial worries, the burden on our bodies increases and wears down our ability to adapt and cope. Long-term or chronic stress continuously activates our body’s stress response which can damage the body and contribute to physical and mental health problems.
What Causes Stress?
The situations, changes, threats, or pressures that cause stress are known as stressors. Stressors may be caused by external factors that are major threats or life events, like violence and natural disasters, or smaller, everyday situations such as work demands. When even small stressors accumulate, however, they can endanger our physical and mental health. Stress may also be caused by internal factors such as how we perceive or interpret a situation, so thinking too much, dwelling on problems, imagining worst case scenarios, and beating ourselves up for mistakes will all increase our stress levels. In addition, the ways in which we cope with stress can either reduce or increase our stress levels. Unhealthy ways of coping with stress, like withdrawing from family and friends, drinking too much alcohol, or denying our feelings, often negatively affect our health and become sources of stress themselves.
From pre-migration to post-resettlement, migrant, refugee, or displaced children face a host of stressors and traumatic events. Stressors may include armed conflict, persecution, family separation, displacement from their homes, discrimination, harassment, or bullying, family conflicts, lack of a sense of belonging, academic difficulties, or living in poor housing with limited resources.
What are the Signs of Stress?
Stress can affect our bodies, behaviors, feelings, and thoughts. The signs and symptoms of stress may show up similarly in children as they do in adults, but sometimes stress affects children differently. Some common signs of stress in adults and children include:
