Stress Awareness Month is a bunch of BS

I'm about to go off...

Happy National Stress Awareness Month! 

Funny how I never realized this was a thing until someone mentioned it this year (Thanks, Mighty As A Mother podcast!)

Apparently, there is an annual dedication to my favorite topic. It happens every April and dates back to 1992.

Cool!

It’s origin and continued sponsorship comes from the Health Resource Network. And, to by honest, I am not quite sure how I feel about that organization so I’m gonna take some liberty and skip over them and lean into another reputable source sharing the information for Stress Awareness Month — The National Institutes of Health.

Let’s check out the NIH Stress Awareness Month website: 

According to NIH,

“April is recognized as National Stress Awareness Month to bring attention to the negative impact of stress.”

 Ok, I’m following

“Managing stress is an essential component of a healthy lifestyle.” 

Go on… 

“Knowing how to manage stress can improve mental and physical well-being as well as minimize exacerbation of health-related issues.”

Hmmm…

“It’s critical to recognize what stress and anxiety look like, take steps to build resilience, and know where to go for help.”

And, there it is – managing stress is a personal problem. If you cannot hear my deep sigh from wherever you are in the world, revisit this post.  

Ok, back to the website. Maybe the resources paragraph will be more helpful?

“The Mental Health American (MHA) provides some tips on how to reduce your stress by utilizing a Stress Screener.”

(First of all, NIH, you need a copy editor. It’s Mental Health American.) 

Now, let’s test out MHA’s Stress Screener. 

Fifteen questions. Here we go (in summary form)…

1. Diet question

2. Excessive sweating question

3. Sleep question

4. Digestion question

5. Mental health question (??!!!) – “Are you suffering from burnout, anxiety disorders or depression?”

6. Self-care question

7. Friendship + social network question

8. Exercise question

9. Substance (drinking, smoking) question

10. Tension headache question

11. Weight and diet question

12. Question about irritation levels

13. Missed work due to illness question

14. Fatigue question

15. Is stress affecting your health? Here is what I have to choose from: 

    1. Not really. I'm just taking this test for fun

    2. Possibly. I'm not sure, but I wouldn't be shocked if it were true.

    3. Yes. In fact, I'd be surprised if stress WEREN'T affecting my health.

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After choosing the not-so-bad/not-so-good middle of the three answers for each question, I submit and get… 

actual screenshot

Yeah, couldn’t we all? Now what? 

More info below that super helpful conclusion:

“You may be experiencing a degree of stress-related health effects. While you may not be having serious health consequences yet, it's important to lead a healthy lifestyle that includes minimal stress as stress over time can lead to more serious problems. The below resources explain how stress affects your health, and provide important information on how to stay healthy.”

Not sure about you but I do not find this information all that helpful. Well, I suppose it is helpful for validating a key reason for starting this project to begin with:

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Back to the Stress Screener — what if we took the test and answered everything on the extreme end?

Here we go:  

1. Yes, I have to admit that my diet is pretty unhealthy.

2. Yes, [excessive sweating] happens fairly regularly.

3. Yes, I pretty often have trouble with sleep quality, or with falling and staying asleep.

4. Yes, I'm experiencing pretty regular digestive problems.

5. Yes.

6. No, I rarely take care of myself.

7. No, I have few close friends or supportive family ties, or I don't have time to devote to the people I could be close with.

8. No. I live a sedentary lifestyle and don't go to the gym regularly.

9. Yes [I drink/smoke often], and to be honest, I know it can't be good for me.

10. Yes, I struggle with [tension headaches] regularly.

11. Yes: I've put on much more weight than I'm comfortable with / I can't keep weight on / My problem area is my abdomen.

12. Yes. I find myself snapping at people out of frustration, or having a low threshold for dealing with annoyances.

13. [I have missed work due to illness] four times or more.

14. Yes. In fact, I'm often fatigued by the MIDDLE of the day.

15. Yes. In fact, I'd be surprised if stress WEREN'T affecting my health.

And [insert drum roll] – The Stress Screener says… 

actual screenshot… again.

Oh boy. 

More info:

“You appear to be at high risk of experiencing health consequences due to your stress levels, or you may be experiencing them already. It's vital to manage stress in your lifestyle to safeguard your health, or prevent further damage. The resources on this website can explain how stress affects your health, and provide important information on how to stay healthy. We strongly recommend that you use these resources to create a healthier lifestyle.”

I mean, that answer is pretty much a stressor in and of itself, right? I know I felt my heart rate spike. 

Let’s follow their advice and check out the “resources on this website”:

Scroll down…. ah, links to visit the ”Ten Tools for Resiliency” and a Learn More page on how stress affects health.

Let’s click through and….

Yep. I’m just going to consider those dead ends for reasons you will likely appreciate if you want to venture down the rabbit hole of more resources revolving around personal responsibility for coping with stress. 

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Ok, back to NIH’s site and the next recommendation for Stress Awareness Month:

“take some time to visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention”.

Let’s see…

Oooh boy, right out of the gate:

“Learning to cope with stress in a healthy way will help you, the people you care about, and those around you become more resilient.”

I might vomit¹. 

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Here’s the problem. 

While I 100% agree that managing stress will “improve mental and physical well-being and minimize exacerbation of health-related issues”, I do not agree that the ONLY solution lies with personal responsibility. Especially when it comes to women’s health.

Nothing. Zero. Zilch. NOT A SINGLE PAGE deviates from the solutions centering around resiliency and ‘coping’ with stress. 

Every bit of advice manages to completely disregard the fact that the most potent stressors relate to societal and structural failures. And there is no acknowledgement that these stressors tend to skew heavily towards women and even more heavily towards those in marginalized and minoritized communities.  

Disregard on display – the Office of Research on Women’s Health at the NIH (another resource featured on the Stress Awareness Month page) lists all the ways that stress is bad while pointing out that a range of stress-related health conditions occur more in women than men. ORWH then paints resilience as THE solution. 

They get so close and then totally blow it:

“There’s a saying, ‘It’s not how far you fall; it’s how high you bounce.’ For those of us who don’t bounce back so easily, there’s good news. Resilience, to some extent, can be learned and there are some simple, practical things that people can do that may make a noticeable difference,”  – Dr. Janine Austin Clayton, Director of the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health

Ok…

my actual face when I read that quote from Dr. Clayton

Yes, the range of stress-related health conditions do affect more women than men. In fact, looking at the recent report by McKinsey on women’s health gap, up to 47% of the gender health gap relates to sex-specific conditions. Of those conditions, nearly all can be classified as stress-related illnesses. 

So instead of making Stress Awareness Month another opportunity to sell the importance of “self care” to women², how about calling for real solutions: 

Stabilize the child care system. Ensure that every human has access to paid leave. Address how gender impacts financial stability when workplace discrimination, the motherhood penalty, and the insane lack of support for family caregiving can destroy the average American’s bank account and crush any hope of generational wealth. Recognize the impact of eviction and housing insecurity. Look closely at how the abortion access debate (already toxic) has creeped its way into one of the most stressful life experiences: fertility treatment. Consider the gendered mental load in the home and workplace. Address how society expects women to devote endless time to unpaid labor and then diminishes them for that. Fix any one of the stressors that relate to breastfeeding and baby feeding decisions. Call out the narratives we are fed about expectations for “good mothers”. And more!

If you want us to “bounce back higher”, fix something. Anything. Pick a thing. It’s much easier to bounce higher when you aren’t stapled to the trampoline.

Most importantly, DO NOT tell us that we are alone and solely responsible for our own stress and our own stress management. 

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My request for next year: 

Dear NIH, 

Let’s have a more productive do-over next year.

If you insist on joining HRN’s National Stress Awareness Month train, let’s make 2025 actually about AWARENESS.  Not awareness of the stress in our own lives (we know) not awareness about how we can personally work towards a magical land of resilience (we’ve heard this), or awareness about how to cope (isn’t that just giving up?), but AWARENESS of the ACTUAL PROBLEM and ACTUAL SOLUTIONS. 

Bring attention to the real sources of stress related to motherhood and caregiving in a country that depends heavily on loading the unsupported weight onto women.  

Make National Stress Awareness Month a tangible call to action – ask everyone to commit to doing or fixing a thing that could affect anyone or EVERYONE. Big and small things add up. 

Most importantly, NIH, correct your website (and not just the spelling errors). 

Recognize that, in order to actually impact stress-related health conditions that are “more common in women than men” (your words), acknowledge that stress is not a ME problem. It is a WE problem. Everyone is responsible for someone else’s stress load. Go beyond the individual and bring awareness to the broader issues AND the broader solutions.

You can do better next year. 

Sincerely, 

Your friendly neighborhood stress nerd

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How was that?

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1. Ok, I know my reaction is a bit extreme. I’m not telling you to throw up your hands and do nothing for your own wellbeing as it relates to stress. Some of the tips and tricks in here for stress management are spot on. Wonderful, excellent stress coping strategies. Resilience is a thing and a useful tool for buffering stress perception.

BUT this broad mission of “Awareness” cannot ONLY focus at the individual level. And solutions cannot ONLY exist within personal responsibility. Stress is also a WE problem, not only a ME problem.

2. The flip side of the self-care concept comes from one of my favorite humans

Pooja Lakshmin MD

, and if you don't already follow her Substack,

Real Self-Care

, GET ON IT.