Stress Research - Smile campaign

As Mind have asked me to create a video advert in order to encourage people to smile in order to reduce stress, I have decided to research into these subjects in order to understand why smiling should be encourage and how stress can be relived by smiling.

Stress Research

I have found an article which relates to the how mental health effects and impacts people's lives daily. For example in this article it speaks about how "People with a long-term mental health condition lose their jobs every year at around double the rate of those without mental health condition. This equates to 300,000 people - The equivalent of the population in Newcastle" this article shows that 300,000 people lose their jobs because of an issue they can not control and many of these people will not only influence their bills or income but their mental health will drop even more, their confidence and self belief will be destroyed as they will believe that having a mental health issue will be a weakness and hold them back from finding a job. 

As a result of this many people will not seek out help or loathe themselves for not working harder and begin weak, Mind wants to stop this figure from increasing and decrease it by giving help to people who need it the most as it will not just effect their mentality but also their well begin. This helps as I am able to understand more about the target audience and how they can and could be affected by this, for my advertisement video I must include confidence and positive messages to them and inform them to a mental health. 

Also in the article it states that "Half of mental ill health starts by the age of 15 and 75% develops by the age of 18" this informs me that for my target audience that I need to send a message across that Mind is there to help with and inform them how to contact Mind and discuss about how mental health can be helped with different types of of methods. 

This brings to my attention that I should mainly focus on the age 15 to 20 as the mental health problems will mostly likely begin between these ages and that it will mainly be the cause of schools, as education is very focused on grades and puts students under a lot of pressure. In the article it states as well " 7 children out of a class will most likely be bullied during their time throughout education" this justifies my opinion as many children and adults will be bullied and this will have put more pressure on them during their time in education. 

Mental health statistics · MHFA England

On the NHS website it states that "Stress is the body's reaction to feeling threatened or under pressure. It is very common, as it can also help us achieve our goals as we want to complete the goal as quickly as we can, but too much stress can affect our moods, body and relation ships." Experiencing too much stress over a long period of time can cause physical and emotion exhaustion, often called a burnout.

Signs of stress or burnout are typically are:

• Feeling overwhelmed 
• Having racing thoughts or difficult concentrating 
• begin irritable 
• Constantly worried 
• Anxious 
• Lack of self confidence 
• Troubled sleep 
• Avoiding things or people 
• Eating more or less 
• Drinking or smoking 

Stress - Every Mind Matters - NHS (www.nhs.uk)

The client Mind, has a webpage dedicated to stress, They inform everyone about how stress is caused, what it is , how to prevent stress, developing pressure , treatment and how family and friends can help to deal with stress. On the webpage they say how stress is a mental health problem as it is very closely linked to causing mental health problems and how mental health problems an cause stress. 
This is very informative as people may believe they don't have a mental health problem , but they may do because of the pressure they are under. This webpage informs me that they are now trying to reach people about how stress can link to mental health and what it is.

Stress is a situation or event that taken place and placed pressure on us, this is very typical as this mainly apart of life, but it does not mean it cannot cause other problems, stress is our reaction because of the pressure. When many people are stressed, they normally take it our on people they are closet to such as friends and family, this can lead to more stress and broken relations. 

Stress does not just take the form of a mental toll but also a physical one as well, as our bodies react to it such as:

• Tiredness
•  Headaches 
• Upset stomach

And often when we are stressed, we will find it hard to sleep or have a poor diet as this can make us feel more stressed emotionally. 

There are many reasons for the causes of stress as:

• Begin under a lot of pressure 
• Facing big changes 
• Worrying about something 
• Not having much control over the out come of a situation
• Having responsibilities that you're finding overwhelming 
• Having too much work and activities  
• Changes in your life and times of uncertainty

The target audience are mostly likely too face stressful situations and these are the most likely the causes of them. 

What is stress? | Mind, the mental health charity - help for mental health problems

Smiling Research

Smiling-Noun- Is an act or fact of smiling. Adjective-Having or characterized by a smile. 

The true meaning of a smile is a facial expression which the eyes brightens and the corners of the mouth curve slightly upward and which expresses especially amusement, pleasure, approval or sometimes a scorn.
The purpose of smiling is that body language and moods are linked so it makes sense that laughing and smiling on purpose help us to relax. Smiling relaxes the facial muscles and calms the nervous systems, this action also sends more oxygen to the brain that triggers a brain chemical called endorphins.

Why smiling, while stressed?

Smiling helps our bodies to relax and relieve pressure emotionally and physically, this can causes less stress and stop people from beginning overwhelmed. While smiling and feeling that pressure leave, it can give people a small piece of time to think slowly about the pressure they are under and how they can accomplish their goals.

In the target audience age range, they will mostly likely face stressful situation as they are under a lot of academic and social pressure, as they are told to be the best academically and fir perfectly into society standards, many feel the pressure to change their appearance in order to fir into the standards the society force them into. 
Smiling is the best message you can send to the target audience as it can help them to relieve that pressure that is put on them, emotionally or physically. 

Smiling can help to lower your heart rate and this is provided by Kraft and Pressman, they held an experiment where they invited 160 people to go through different experiments with and without smiling. They found that the participants who were instructed to smile, and in particular those whose faces expressed genuine or Duchenne smiles, had lower heart rates after recovering from the stressful activities they went through than the ones who held their faces in neutral expressions.                  Smiling lowers the blood pressure so it is easier to relax and calm the body down, this is a physical reaction.

Smiling Reduces Stress And Helps The Heart (medicalnewstoday.com)

This has helped me understand why psychological reason why smiling helps to reduce stress, but it also makes me understand how I need to focus on how to get my target audience to also understand the reason and why smiling is able to reduce stress for them.