{"id":298,"date":"2025-07-31T15:27:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T14:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/cardiacrehabilitation\/stress-and-cardiac-conditions\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T15:29:46","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T14:29:46","slug":"stress-and-cardiac-conditions","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/cardiacrehabilitation\/stress-and-cardiac-conditions\/","title":{"rendered":"Stress and Cardiac Conditions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>It is&nbsp; quite common to feel an increase in stress after a cardiac event. Stress is not only unpleasant; &nbsp;it &nbsp;may reduce your motivation to make the kind of&nbsp; lifestyle changes which are helpful to your heart, such as improving your diet or activity level.&nbsp; Therefore it is important to learn ways to reduce stress and improve your sense of wellbeing.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The &#8220;stress bucket&#8221; is a simple analogy&nbsp;we use to&nbsp;explain&nbsp;in everyday terms how we experience stress,&nbsp;some of the pitfalls we fall into,&nbsp;and ways to help us&nbsp;better manage our stress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-vimeo wp-block-embed-vimeo\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Stress Bucket NHS Lothian\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/422747832?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"1440\" height=\"900\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Here you can see a <a href=\"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/cardiacrehabilitation\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/26\/2022\/02\/StressBucket.pdf\">summary of what was described in the &#8220;stress bucket&#8221; video<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More information about stress and its relevance to heart conditions is shown on the <a href=\"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/cardiacrehabilitation\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/26\/2022\/02\/StressHandout.docx\">Stress Information handout<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"nhs-stress-management\">NHS Stress Management<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhsinform.scot\/healthy-living\/mental-wellbeing\/stress\/struggling-with-stress\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">NHS&nbsp;information on Stress and Stress Management<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"bhf-stress-management\">BHF Stress Management<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bhf.org.uk\/informationsupport\/risk-factors\/stress\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">British Heart&nbsp;Foundation&#8217;s&nbsp;information on&nbsp;stress and cardiac conditions<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bhf.org.uk\/informationsupport\/publications\/stress\/understanding-stress\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">British Heart&nbsp;Foundation&#8217;s booklet on&nbsp;stress and how to manage it<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Stepping back from stressful thoughts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The techniques below are from the Getself help website. Try one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The STOPP technique is a mindfulness-based practice designed to help you\u00a0step back from stressful thoughts for a moment. Try to practice this a few times in the day until it becomes a more natural habit. The Helicopter View encourages you to try to step back and see a wider picture. The Worry Tree helps you think about how to tackle worries. Which ones CAN you set aside a little time to do something practical to change them. Which ones are only  hypothetical. If this is the case how can you step back from these.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/cardiacrehabilitation\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/26\/2025\/07\/STOPPworksheet.pdf\">STOPP worksheet<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/cardiacrehabilitation\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/26\/2025\/07\/HelicopterWorksheet.pdf\">Helicopter View worksheet<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/cardiacrehabilitation\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/26\/2025\/07\/worrytree.pdf\">The Worry Tree<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is&nbsp; quite common to feel an increase in stress after a cardiac event. Stress is not only unpleasant; &nbsp;it &nbsp;may reduce your motivation to make the kind of&nbsp; lifestyle changes which are helpful to your heart, such as improving your diet or activity level.&nbsp; Therefore it is important to learn ways to reduce stress<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":16,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/widewidth.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"class_list":["post-298","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"davidmcbain","author_link":"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/cardiacrehabilitation\/author\/davidmcbain\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":false,"rttpg_excerpt":"It is&nbsp; quite common to feel an increase in stress after a cardiac event. Stress is not only unpleasant; &nbsp;it &nbsp;may reduce your motivation to make the kind of&nbsp; lifestyle changes which are helpful to your heart, such as improving your diet or activity level.&nbsp; Therefore it is important to learn ways to reduce stress","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/cardiacrehabilitation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/cardiacrehabilitation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/cardiacrehabilitation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/cardiacrehabilitation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/cardiacrehabilitation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/cardiacrehabilitation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":645,"href":"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/cardiacrehabilitation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/298\/revisions\/645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/cardiacrehabilitation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/services.nhslothian.scot\/cardiacrehabilitation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}