As well as the changes in our life that can lead to stress and the pressures we can be under at work, we can also experience stress at home.
The effects of different stresses can add together whether they are due to work or home. If we've got worries at home we can take them to work and our work can suffer. If they get too bad we won't be well enough to go to work at all. Similarly if we have problems at work they can interface with our home life in a number of ways.
Homelife stresses can be split into areas. In the lists below underline any that you worry about. Add any others you have to deal with.
Money
- debt
- paying bills
- job insecurity
- pressure to keep up with friends etc.
- pressure to provide for family/dependants
Housing
- cost of housing
- quality of housing
- not enough space
- leaving home
- the neighbourhood
- difficulties with neighbours
- learning to be independent
- responsibility of looking after home
- moving
Other people
- loneliness
- arguments
- disagreements
- too many demands
- sexual problems
- worries about children
- lack of time to oneself
- difficulties with partner
- no close confiding relationship
- worries about elderly relatives
- inability to get on with relative
Some of these things will be constant problems. Others we will be able to cope with most of the time and they might not seem to be too much of a problem. Often they will become problems only when we're under other pressures or are tired, ill or unhappy for other reasons. There is a saying that goes:
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
For each of the things you've underlined in the lists on this and the previous page ask yourself how you think you could overcome the problem. Remember that accepting things you cannot change is one way of overcoming a problem. However, before you decide to accept a problem you need to know what other ways there are. When you have thought about, it fill in the table below.
| Problems I underlined | How I could overcome them |
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