Stress is proving seriously bad for the health of our society and the economy.

Stress is an issue of growing concern for policy makers, a report published by the Mental Health Foundation shows the extent of the damage it is causing to our national health.

The report based on a YouGov poll of 4169 UK adults shows that 74% of the respondents said they had been so stressed in the past year they found it difficult to function.

The causes of stress are multiple and complex, ranging from major life events to multiple minor annoyances.

Amongst those cited by respondents coping with their own long- term illness or that of a relative was a major cause of stress in the over 55’s (44%).

Young people report high levels of stress associated with feeling pressure to be or appear successful (60%) and constantly comparing themselves to others (49%).

Debt was cited as a cause of stress by 22% of respondents along with worries connected to housing. Younger people were significantly more stressed about this issue (32% of 18-24 year olds), the older people get the less of a concern it appears to be, 22% of 44-54 year olds were stressed about housing and by age 55 this falls to 7%.

In general stress seems to be a problem that inversely affects younger people with only 7% of respondents in the 18-24 age group saying they never felt stressed compared to 30% of older ones.

Conditions in the workplace also feed the UK’s problem with stress, figures produced by the Health and Safety Executive(H&SE) for 2016/17 show 526,000 instances of stress related absence. Public sector workers are more likely to take time off sick due to stress with tight deadlines and lack of support from management being given as the main causes.

A report produced by the Centre for Economic and Business Research in 2017 gives the annual cost to the UK of time off taken due to stress as £18billion, saying the problem has increased dramatically since 2011 and could cost the economy £26 billion by 2030 if nothing is done to address the issue (Source: Personnel Today).

Stress can be helpful in controlled amounts because it helps us to be alert and maximizes performance in the short term. Experienced for long periods it can exacerbate or cause serious physical and mental health problems.

This can include damaging the body’s immune and digestive systems, it can also encourage unhealthy behaviours. Respondents to the YouGov poll spoke about eating unhealthily (46%) and drinking too much (29%) to try and cope with stress.

They also described the impact stress, which is not seen as a condition in its own right, has had on their mental health, 51% reported feeling depressed, 61% said it had made them feel anxious and 37% said they had experienced loneliness as a result of being stressed.

The report makes several recommendations for tackling the problems associated with stress. These include better support for public sector workers, mental health literacy training in schools and for employers to treat mental health in the workplace as a health and safety issue.

It also calls on health professionals to treat stress more seriously, there is still a residual scepticism as the ‘stiff upper lip’ school of medical thought continues to, if only implicitly, shape policy.

The most important recommendation the report makes though is that the government funds detailed research into the causes and prevalence of stress, focussing on the impact of welfare reforms.