Speaking English - How to talk about STRESS

Want to practice your conversational English? In this lesson we’ll talk about stress! Do you stress out about school? Work? Public speaking? Or do you thrive in stressful situations? Today, you’ll learn vocabulary and expressions to describe stress and the situations that cause stress. I’ll also share my tips to cope with stress. Whether at work, school, or at home, we often talk about stress. Watch this lesson and don’t let speaking English stress you out! TRANSCRIPT Hi. This is Gill at , and today we’re going to look at a particular type of thing that happens to people in their lives and also to look at the kind of way we describe it in the English language. Okay? So, we’re saying: “Don’t get stressed out!“ Right? Now, getting stressed out is, with modern life, there are so many demands; we have to do things quickly, we have to survive, have somewhere to live, enough food to eat, somewhere to work, all of these things, and it causes a lot of stress. Okay? So this word “stress“ is when you’re feeling very... Very upset and agitated, and worried because of everything that you have to do and everything that’s happening, and whether you can cope with it or not. So, modern life has a lot of stresses and strains. “Strains“ are the same idea, really, things sort of pulling you around, making you do this and that, and you feel all the time you’re having to do what other people want you to do, and you have no control over what you’re doing, all of that kind of thing. And it can be quite upsetting if you don’t feel you’re in control of the situation. So... So we’re saying: “Don’t get stressed out!“ This is maybe a little bit of advice in here, along with the way of expressing it, about how to cope with stress if you’re feeling stressed. Okay? So there’s lots of pressure in the modern world, it can be traumatic, it can cause you a lot of anxiety. We’re always being bombarded by information, advertising: “Buy this. Do this. You should be doing this.“ And there’s a lot of pressure on people to do things that maybe they don’t really want to do or they don’t see the point of doing, but other people are pressurizing them to do it. Okay? So... So what someone might say if they’re in a job that is very, what we’d say highly pressured, a job that is very busy with a lot of responsibilities, somebody might say: “I can’t take the stress of this job!“ Meaning: “I can’t... I can’t do it. I can’t keep having all this stress every day. It’s too much.“ Okay? So: “I can’t take the stress of this job!“ All right? One of the terms we use for when you’re more comfortable with what you’re doing is that you’re in your “comfort zone“. It’s like a zone, it’s an area where you’re comfortable. The things that you’re happy doing, the things that you are confident doing, that’s in your comfort zone. So maybe being at home, watching television is in your comfort zone. Maybe going and playing some sports, going swimming which you enjoy, going out with friends may all be in your comfort zone where you are comfortable. Okay? So you stay inside your comfort zone if you don’t really want to try new things. But sometimes, it’s a good idea to go outside your comfort zone or step outside your comfort zone just to test what you might be capable of doing. Okay? Just try a little something that’s different to see how it goes. So it’s not always a good idea to stay within your comfort zone all the time. Try to step outside it occasionally. I often try to try something new, see how it goes, and if it’s successful, then you feel great. “I’ve learnt something new, here“, and then you feel good about yourself. Okay? So, this term also: “Pushing the envelope“ is another way of saying “going outside your comfort zone“, “stepping outside“. The idea of being inside an envelope, you have a letter inside, but the envelope is closed. But if you push the envelope, you’re sort of pushing outside it, trying something new, something different. Okay? So trying new things.