High stress in the North East

LIFE is more stressful for people in the North East compared to the UK as a whole, new figures have revealed.

The statistics out today show a huge 77% of the region have been ‘overwhelmed or unable to cope’ at some point in the last year, compared to the country-wide figure of 74%.

The figures have been released to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week, which begins today. And the UK stress survey – commissioned by the Mental Health Foundation - also found more than a third of people (37%) in the North East had experienced suicidal thoughts or feelings because of stress, compared to 32% nationwide.

Meanwhile around one sixth of people in the region (17%) said they had self-harmed as a result of feelings of stress compared to the UK figure of 16%.

And it seems stressful employment situations and struggling businesses could be playing a big part in why stress levels in our region are high.

Cal Strode, a spokesperson for the Mental Health Foundation, said: “We see across these figures that the impact of stress seems to be slightly higher in the North East. The data doesn’t tell us exactly why, but knowing that mental health stressors often run across socioeconomic fault lines, we can speculate that this could be linked to more stressful employment situations and businesses struggling to cope.

“Last year the Chronicle pointed out that almost 8,000 firms in Tyne and Wear, Northumberland and County Durham were summonsed for non-payment of business rates in 2016-7, the highest proportion of local businesses in the country.

“The North East always gives Mental Health Awareness Week a warm welcome, this year Newcastle’s Millennium Bridge will be lighting up green, the colour of mental health awareness to mark the week.”

The study is believed to be the largest and most comprehensive stress survey ever carried out across the UK with 4619 surveyed between March 29 and April 20 this year.

It was commissioned from YouGov to launch the awareness week which has been run by the Mental Health Foundation since 2001. The study is included in a new report by the Mental Health Foundation, called Stress – Are We Coping?