 Hi, this is Sean Brotherson, Family Life Specialist with NDSU Extension at North Dakota State University. Today I'd like to visit with you about your health and responses to rural stress. Stress conditions in agriculture have been severe in recent times in the upper Midwest, so I'd like to share a little bit about the importance of understanding signs of rural stress and finding resources to manage it effectively. We'll begin with a short 30-second video from the North Dakota Bankers Association about responding to rural stress. This is Al Gustin. As farmers we know the importance of taking care of our equipment, but with all the demands of our daily operations we sometimes forget to take care of ourselves. Concerns about production, prices, and policy can weigh heavily on us. If you feel isolated and overwhelmed, talk to someone, family, friends, or professionals. If you feel you just can't keep going, call First Link anytime at 211 for listening and support. This message is brought to you by the members of the North Dakota Bankers Association and Beck Sports. Farming and ranching consistently have been ranked among the top 10 most stressful occupations in the United States. For example, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health examined 130 occupations and found that those who were working in farm and ranch settings had the highest rate of death due to stress-related health conditions, including heart disease, hypertension, ulcers, or nervous difficulties. All of us need to learn how to manage our stress levels and reduce the effects of unwanted stress in our lives. Too much stress can make a person more accident prone and it can negatively affect your health. For optimal health, the following things are really important. First, identify some common stressors. Second, recognize symptoms of being affected by stress. And third, manage your stress through conscious choices and healthy living practices and social support. By doing these particular things, you'll make the workplace, including your farm or ranch operation, a safer place. When you think about your farm or ranch operation and the key farming resources or assets that you depend on for productivity, typically you can make a list of particular assets on your operation. These might include land, equipment, seed, fertilizer, labor, capital, or other things. However, I want you to think about another asset that we often don't talk about. After thinking about your key farming resources or assets, ask yourself, have you ever listed health as one of the most important assets in your farm or ranch operation? Health is actually the most important asset for any farmer, rancher, or agricultural worker. Among all the assets on your farm or ranch operation, the health of the individuals involved in the operation and the quality of relationships are the most important assets to consider. Although they typically are not listed as assets. Now, if health and the quality of relationships are the most important assets on a farm or ranch operation, then also the health and safety of individuals need to be the most important priorities in managing any farm or ranch operation. You need to develop a good plan to manage and improve the health of all the individuals who work in an operation. Good stress management and pursuing health is good farm and ranch management. Maintaining the equipment that is used on a farm or ranch operation is important to an operation's productivity. Farm and ranch operations rely on their equipment to be in good working condition. During key times such as planning and harvest, your equipment is not maintained in good working condition, then an operation has a hard time being safe and productive at key times. Similar to the equipment that is used in agriculture, an individual's health is what a person relies on to be in good working condition in times of stress. You rely on your health to function every day, to make decisions, and do the tasks that are needed to be productive on your farm or ranch operation. Your health is critically important as a key resource in times of stress, so giving attention to maintaining one's health is even more important than maintaining the equipment on an operation. For those who are working in agriculture, too often prioritizing the maintenance of farm equipment is common, but farm and ranch workers don't always think about or work on their own physical and mental health. Signs of stress are like warning signals, similar to the flashing red light on the dashboard of a car. They're warning you to pay attention, to slow down, and to take steps to check for difficulty. These warning signs can occur in the physical, mental, emotional, behavioral, and relationship dimensions of a person's life. Let's talk a little bit about what some of those symptoms might look like. First physical and emotional are mental signs of stress. When we talk about physical dimensions of stress, we'll often see things like people having headache, tension in their back, and neck muscles. You might see digestive difficulties with stomach upset. Sometimes people will have difficulty breathing, shallow breathing, labored breathing. Low energy is very common, extreme fatigue or tiredness, and also you might see aggravation of existing health concerns. It's important to recognize that individuals might show signs of stress in different ways. For example, one person's physical signs of stress might be stomach upset or fatigue, while another person may have a severe or persistent headache. When we talk about emotional signs of stress, some of the indicators include being overly irritable about little things or more commonly irritable than is usual for a person, having a sense of frustration or anger about news that you receive or anything that's going on in your operation, feeling impatient, feeling restless, unable to feel settled, a sense of discouragement or hopelessness is quite common when you're dealing with heavy levels of stress. We'll also see withdrawal from others, a tendency to isolate oneself, not engage in some of the typical activities that you usually enjoy or engage in. And then some other indicators include feelings of anxiety or panic or being paralyzed, unable to make a decision or feel like you can get to the day, or similarly difficulty concentrating. So these are particular signs of stress to be attentive to. A person may vary in the emotional signs of stress that they exhibit. One person may withdraw from others or become more isolated while another person may become angry and irritable. So you need to think about what are the particular signs of stress that are manifesting in your own particular life and experience. When we discuss behavioral signs of stress, we're talking about things that we see in the actions of individuals and how they're behaving on a daily basis. Often you'll see difficulties with sleep and that can include either oversleeping or feeling exhausted all the time or having an inability to sleep or to get to sleep. You'll see difficulties with relaxing or concentrating, just an inability to settle down. Sometimes you might find yourself getting angry more easily or having trouble making decisions. For some individuals there will be attempts to escape the stress that they're experiencing by an increased use of alcohol or other drugs. Personality-wise a person might have difficulty being flexible. And then with regard to diet, some people will overeat, we call that eating your stress, while others will have just a limited appetite and not feel like eating at all. So these are some behavioral signs of stress. In terms of people's relationships, often you'll see communication difficulties that start to emerge as people are more impatient or they don't want to listen. Conflict with family members or others that you're working with in a farmer ranch operation may exist. Feeling of not being satisfied, content anymore with the relationships that you're in or the work that you're doing. Sometimes you may see elevated verbal or physical signs of stress outbursts or even abusive behavior. You may just feel strained interactions in relationships with people. You don't want to talk to them. You want to avoid others. And sometimes people will just throw themselves into their work and as a result, they'll have more limited time with a spouse, children or others. Important to realize that one person's behavioral signs of stress might be difficulties with sleep and overeating, while for another individual it might be increased use of alcohol or drugs, aspirin or aids to help sleep or things like that. So be aware of these variations in signs of stress and again, recognize that they're an indicator that you need to slow down, get checked and pay attention to one's health. Now there are some key factors that are helpful in managing one's stress and health. Some of the positive factors that protect somebody from the negative effects of stress or limited difficulty include, first of all, increased family and community support from others. You can also access support from professionals in the community, whether that be for counseling or just to have a listening ear, or to access particular resources that are going to be important to your health. The second thing is to have a regular weekly check with a health care provider, a health partner, a counselor or some other trusted individual to assess how you're doing. Third is focus on healthy living practices. These include things like regular exercise, a good sleep habit, a healthy diet and other health practices that are important to you. And finally, it's important to seek effective medical care or other professional care to get support and treatment for any particular health concerns that you may be dealing with, whether physical health or mental health. NDSU Extension has a publication called 12 Tools for Your Wellness Toolbox in Times of Pharm Stress. You can access that online. It will allow you to look at different practical options for pursuing health and decreasing your stress. What about the experience of others around you? It may not be you as an individual who is experiencing stress and it's related difficulties, but you may see it in the lives of people that you're working with. And so you want to think about what you might be able to do to help others. Explore how you might take some action or approach an individual who is dealing with stress. First of all, be consistent and patient in your expression of concern for someone and how they're doing with regard to health or management of stress without exerting too much pressure on them. Simply express that you're concerned about them. You want to see how they're doing. Second, it's important to be direct in your approach. Treat the individual as an adult. Share any concerns that you have with them openly. A third point is to be empathetic and be genuine. People are more likely to ask for help from someone that they trust and they perceive to be genuine, supportive. And so please seek to communicate that as you're talking with someone. It's important to listen and build rapport. You might give specific examples of behaviors or attitudes that concern you. For example, you might say, I've noticed that you've been exhausted lately. You seem to have a hard time getting through the day. What's going on? How are you doing? Or you might identify, I haven't seen you coming to church services or I haven't noticed you coming to regular coffee that we get together for. Is something going on? So you might use specific examples of behaviors that are raising a red flag for you about someone's health and stress management. Finally, use specific statements such as, I am concerned about you. I'm concerned about your health. And be willing to share your genuine interest in their well-being. A couple of other things that are important in considering action that you might take to be of assistance to others. First of all, be aware of the resources or organizations that are available in your community, their particular services, and how you might provide a referral to them. Think about if there is help needed that you in particular are unable to provide but you can connect someone with a helpful source of information. You might listen for signs that the person or family needs help in an area where you might link them with a particular resource. That might be financial assistance. It might be legal advice. It might be personal counseling. If you find that is true, then you want to assess what agency or what community resource is going to be most appropriate to address an individual or family's particular concerns. You might discuss a referral with the individual and say, it looks like you are feeding this way. I think that X or Y agency could be of help to you in your situation. Don't worry if you don't say things perfectly. What's important is that you convey your message of concern. You express your willingness to help someone. Also, don't be discouraged if the person isn't ready to accept some assistance. Simply express your support and be patient with the situation. But plan a seed so that the opportunity comes to link them with a particular resource. You can help be that bridge to a resource that can be helpful to them. Finally, encourage people to get proper professional assistance for their health from a primary care doctor, a mental health professional or other trusted professional source. If someone feels a need to access mental health supports or services or if you feel concerned about an individual who's under stress and may have difficulty coping or even it has feelings of suicidality, the resources that you can direct them to may be lifesaving in their instance. I'd encourage you again to be familiar with those resources and how you can direct them to sources of support. In the state of North Dakota, you can call the 2-1-1 24-hour helpline and referral service. They provide camp crisis counseling and also link individuals at any time with particular resources that are needed. You might also refer someone to a local health care provider or mental health professional. And the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK or 8255. There are a variety of other educational resources on managing farm stress that can be found online at the NDSU Farm Stress webpage. Simply search for us online at NDSU and Farm Stress. These resources include educational videos, podcasts and other resource publications on a variety of aspects of managing farm stress and improving one's health. We encourage you to access that information. Thank you for listening today. This has been brought to you by NDSU Extension, Extending Knowledge, Changing Lives.