Deputy Principals' Report

To our St Finbar's Community

The Impact of Stress

Some is essential, a lot is catastrophic… 

“Stress is defined as a perceived inability to cope when the demands of a situation threaten to exceed the resources of the individual.” Lazarus & Folk, 1984

Lisa Barker shared with all of us the impact of stress and how it not only affects our wellbeing but the wellbeing of the community. Lisa explains that there are different types of stress; challenge stress and threat stress. Each serve a purpose and we need to be able to identify what triggers each one and how to manage it. Lisa shared with us that we have adaptive and maladaptive ways that we deal with stress. Working towards more adaptive ways is essential to ensuring a healthy school ecosystem. We were asked to reflect on what adaptive strategies we already use to manage stress as well as identifying stress factors in our lives. Balancing these stressful experiences with activities that reduce stress was also key to ensuring better overall wellbeing. 

“Prolonged stress leads to significant wear and tear on the body, also known as Allostatic Load” (Dr Craig Hassed).

Steele Anderson and Peggy McDonald