Finding a way to cope with stress
STRESSED
RTÉ ONE, TONIGHT, 9.35PM
STRESS can be a funny thing, because it means different things to different people.
For starters, what seems like a stressful situation to some can merely be an opportunity to others – but the fact the whole ‘wellness’ industry is now a billion dollar racket shows that it’s an ever-present factor in modern life and everyone, to one degree or another, feels it and has to work out ways of dealing with it.
Tonight sees Stressed (RTÉ One, 9.35pm), the first of a two-part special looking at how some Irish people deal with the various degrees of stress in their life and what they can do to lighten their burden.
Presented by Jennifer O’Connell, with expert advice coming from Trinity Professor Ian Robertson, the show looks at five people from across the country who are all desperate to find some way to cope.
So, among the volunteers we see a woman who has to look after a son with Hunter syndrome, a teacher who suffers from insomnia, a grandfather who is trying to find a balance between his retirement and his desire to stay active, and a chef who is struggling with the demands of the job.
We’ve developed something of an obsession with reducing stress and anxiety in the West, as the proliferation of TV shows and awareness campaigns about the issue so amply proves.
But whether it’s something you can simply magic away by changing your attitude, or whether it involves something more profound, such as changing your job or your lifestyle, depends on the individual.
It’s certainly an interesting and depressingly relateable subject to explore, and tomorrow night’s final episode will see how the test subjects got on, as well as releasing the results of the latest ‘How Are You, Ireland?’ mental health survey...
On a similar topic, the Darkness Into Light (TV3, tonight, 9pm) sponsored walks and runs took place recently and this documentary looks at the work done by the Pieta House suicide-awareness campaign. Thousands of people took part in events around the country this year and it is has become an increasingly popular event...
During the Troubles in the 1980s and early ‘90s, the Northern Ireland Office released a series of government information films urging people to go to the authorities if they had any information about terrorist activities.
The 25 short films were controversial at the time – well, everything in Northern Ireland was controversial at that time – and were dismissed by republicans as propaganda.
Ads On The Frontline (BBC One, tonight, 9pm) looks back at these artefacts of a bygone era...