ABSTRACT
Anxiety is a natural human reaction that helps people prepare for challenging, new, exciting or stressful situations. Everyone experiences emotions linked to anxiety at some point in time and it is natural to feel nervous, worried or scared as different situations or circumstances arise in life. The threat response is essential when faced with genuine danger and usually calms once that danger has passed. However, for people suffering from heightened anxiety, this response can become similar to a faulty smoke alarm system, triggering at the tiniest amount of burnt toast and refusing to switch off again. Anxiety can impact academic performance, attendance, memory, language comprehension and executive function, quality of life, relationships and the ability to socially engage. The stress bucket analogy shows different stressors which go into filling a person’s stress bucket and strategies which can be used throughout the day to ‘empty’ that bucket, or coping strategies to relax and reset.
