In this video, we're going to be taking you through an exercise called the life stress inventory. This was an exercise made aware to me, Lou and I, when we got trained with Mental Health First Aid by the Mental Health Commission of Canada, Mental Health First Aid is much like your regular first aid where you learn CPR how to help someone breeze, except with this, you learn all about mental health, and the different types of afflictions that people may have from depression, to anxiety, to bipolar. All of the different types of mental health issues that you could come across, you learn about these things, you learn ways of recognizing, and you learn steps to helping people if you do see those red flags, about how you can get them their best support. One of the things that I was really shocked by was using this life stress inventory example.

So as you can see, now, you see a large list all associated with a bunch of numbers and points if you will on the side. And what I want you to do is to think about Have you experienced any of these in the last 92? Let's just say the last 60 days to a year if you'd like to do. So you go through and you read these things, and you say, have I had a death of the spouse, have I changed jobs, have I moved home, moved homes, have I had a vacation, and you just check off the things that have happened to you, and you add up the score that it gives you. Depending on what score you give, it's going to give you an indication of whether or not you have been experiencing a lot of life stress. Some things that you might not even have thought would bring about stress like vacation, most people look very much forward to having their vacation.

But vacation actually can add a lot of stress. You have to travel, you might have to pack, you may worry about people that you're leaving behind or if you have to get people to look after your home or an animal or plants. All of that can add a lot of stress even though you're doing something that you do really want to take advantage of Like a vacation. So I encourage you to use this exercise to just bring about some awareness about the types of stress that might be in your life currently, you can also share this exercise with a friend or family to help bring awareness and clarity for them. If you think that they're under a lot of stress, but maybe they're not actually realizing what might be causing it, going through this life, inventory stress exercise is a really great tool to use. Don't let it discourage you, whatever the results might be.

It's just helping you bring awareness so that you can then find solutions so that then you can change habits and behaviors so that you can be more aware and then rationalize with yourself. Ah, this is why I'm stressed. This is why I'm not eating well, and it's because you've got a lot of things going on in your life. Okay, so enjoy this exercise and we'll see you in the next video.