After completing the Holmes Rah Score Stress rating sheet, I scored a total of 152; which I’m told ‘implies a 50% chance of a major health breakdown in the next 2 years’.

My biggest stress related event accounting to this score was the death of my papa just under a year ago. I was very close to my papa and so it was a shock to my system when he very suddenly had a heart attack, resulting in him being in a coma for a week and then sadly passing. My whole family was and still is affected by this change in our lives and so everyones emotions were heightened for a long time, which caused stress throughout my family.

Other events that I related to from the list were; ‘ major change in the health of a family member’ as my youngest sister was diagnosed with diabetes about 6 months ago at the age of 12. Also, major changes in social activities and change to  a new school, contributed to my score too.

It has shocked me that as a result of my score there is a 50% chance that in the next 2 years I’ll develop a major health breakdown. The word major stands out for me as in 2 years I will be coming to the end of my 3rd year of Uni and beginning to look at my final year studying primary education. If I was to develop a health implication that had a major impact on my life this would then affect my schooling and my chances at qualifying as a teacher.

In order to hopefully prevent this happening, I will attempt to deal with my stress more. I feel because I train in dancing 4 times a week that I am a fairly health person. However, out with this I know I need to get into a healthier eating  routine as when I do eat good foods I automatically feel much more awake and less sluggish, so have a higher self-esteem. I also feel I need to stop worrying so much about others and what they think and instead focus on my own happiness and well-being and this in turn should make me a less stressed person.

Overall,  I feel for my own benefits I need to chill out more and not get so worked up and stressed by such little things, this test has shown my why I’m stressed and although some factors I cannot help others I can prevent from happening which should decrease my stress levels.

Reflecting back on this weeks input in society and lifestyle, I learnt a lot about the behaviours and actions people take that can put themselves or others at risk.

I was astonished to find out that men and women on average live until 77.1 and 81.1 years, retrospectively in Scotland and this may be down to the country having one of the poorest health rate across the UK and Europe.

The most interesting part of the seminar for myself was when we were put into small groups to investigate in detail one of the 6 categories of ‘at risk behaviour’, which are one of the main causes of death by emergency hospital admissions. We focused on ‘Behaviours contributing to unintentional/intentional injuries’. Some of the causes that can result in this behaviour are peer pressure, gang culture, self-defense, bullying, motor vehicle crashes, domestic abuse and an unhealthy lifestyle. I learnt that these injuries can not only affect the person themselves but also those around them and their families as it can have a long term, damaging effect.

As a perspective educator I see it as my job to teach children from a young age about the categories of risky behaviours, in order to prevent them from going down this road in future.