How to Talk About Stress in English | An English Phrase Lesson

Last week Tuesday was the first day

of the new school year and it was a stressful day.

Teachers were stressed because they didn't know

if they were totally ready to start teaching.

Students were stressed out because they didn't all know

where their classrooms were.

It was certainly a stressful day for a lot of people.

So I thought I should do an English lesson about stress.

If you don't know what stress is,

stress is a feeling you have.

It's kind of a combination of feeling anxious

and having anxiety and being nervous

and being worried about something new that's starting

or just things in life that you are going through.

So in this English lesson, I will talk to you

about how to express feelings of stress

and I'll also teach you some English phrases

that we use when we talk about stress.

(bright music)

Well, hello and welcome to this English lesson about stress.

I hope the lesson doesn't stress you out,

but I think it's a good idea for us

to talk a little bit about stress

and how to express it in English.

Before we get started, though,

if this is your first time here,

don't forget to click that red subscribe button

and give me a thumbs up if this video helps you learn

just a little bit more English.

So in general, if you are feeling anxious

and you are feeling a lot of anxiety

and if you're worried and you're a little nervous,

you can express that in two ways

and it's very, very simple.

You can say, "I'm stressed."

Or you can say, "I'm stressed out."

They mean exactly the same thing.

I'm not sure why we have the second version,

but I actually think it's the more common of the two.

So if I was in a situation where I was feeling

all of those emotions, I would choose

one of those two ways to express it.

I would either say, "I'm stressed."

Or I would say, "I'm stressed out."

You can also use the same two expressions

to be specific about what you're stressed about.

Let's say you have a test tomorrow.

You could say,

"I'm stressed because I have a test tomorrow."

You could also say,

"I'm stressed out because I have a test tomorrow."

Those two sentences mean exactly the same thing.

You could say something like this,

"I'm stressed because I have a job interview next week."

Or, "I'm stressed out

because I have a job interview next week."

Both of those phrases, I'm stressed and I'm stressed out,

meaning exactly the same thing and you can use them

to talk specifically about what you're stressed about.

If there are situations in life that happen routinely,

where you experienced stress,

we usually use the verb to stress out,

or we say to get stressed.

Here are some examples, you can say,

"I stress out when my boss gives me too much work."

Or, "I get stressed when my boss gives me too much work."

For me personally, I stress out

when I don't have enough time in my day

to finish my English lesson.

I get stressed when I don't have enough time

in my day to finish my English lesson.

So, when you're talking about things

that happen over and over again,

things that happen regularly or routinely,

things that give you stress, we usually say stressed out,

or we use the verb, to get stressed.

If there is a person or thing in your life

that causes your life to be stressful,

we can also use the verb to stress out,

but we can kind of invert the sentence a little bit.

You could say something like this,

"My cousin stresses me out."

Maybe your cousin is the kind of person where,

when you're around them, you're constantly feeling stressed.

You would say, "My cousin stresses me out."

Maybe you really, really don't like big storms,

you could say, "Big storms stress me out."

So you can also use the verb to stress out,

but you can flip the sentence and you can talk about someone

or some thing that causes you stress.

And then of course, we have the adjective, stressful.

You can use the adjective stressful

to describe things that cause stress.

You can say things like this,

"My English class is stressful."

I hope your English class isn't stressful, but if it is,

that's how you would describe it.

If you feel stress when you go to your English class,

you would say, "My English class is stressful."

Maybe you have an English test coming up

and you could say, "It is stressful right now

to study for my English test."

I am experiencing a lot of stress, it is stressful.

So, when you want to describe something that causes stress,

you can always use the adjective, stressful.

So let's look at some English phrases related

to the feeling of stress.

One of the things that causes stress in my life

is I tend to leave things to the last minute,

or I tend to do things at the last minute.

Both of these are because I tend to procrastinate.

When you procrastinate,

it means you have lots of time to do something,

but you do all of the work or most of the work immediately

before that work has to be done.

So I am always guilty of doing that.

I often leave things to the last minute,

or I often do things at the last minute,

which are both just bad habits to have.

Hopefully you are not like this.

Hopefully you plan ahead.

Hopefully you do things ahead of time

and you do them in a timely fashion.

Please, I hope you're not someone who leaves things

to the last minute or does things at the last minute,

just a bad habit.

One thing that causes stress is being too busy.

You might have a lot on your plate

or you might have a lot on your mind.

When you have a lot on your plate,

it means you're very, very busy.

You probably have a lot of work to do.

Maybe you have a lot of errands to run.

Maybe life is just very, very busy.

You have a lot on your plate.

Maybe you have a lot on your mind,

when you have a lot on your mind,

it doesn't mean you're busy in the sense

that you're doing a lot of activities.

It means that you have a lot of things to think about.

Maybe you're worrying about a sick relative.

Maybe you're preparing for a test.

Maybe you have to do a whole bunch of errands

and you're not sure what you exactly have to do.

You have a lot on your mind.

So, being busy can be one of the things that causes stress.

You might have a lot on your plate,

or you might have a lot on your mind.

Stress can also be caused by other people.

You might be under pressure

to get something done on time at work.

You might be under the gun to get things done on time.

Don't worry, there's no actual gun involved.

But when you say that you are under pressure

or you are under the gun, it means that your boss

or someone who is in charge of you

is trying to get you to work really hard,

to get something done in a timely fashion,

to get something done on time.

When you are under pressure to get stuff done on time,

it can be very, very stressful

and it can cause a lot of stress.

So, it doesn't always have to be you

that's causing the stress in your life,

sometimes it's your boss, or your manager,

or your supervisor, or maybe someone in your family.

Well, hey, thanks for watching

this English lesson about stress.

This is actually one of those lessons

where I hope you learned a lot of new words and phrases,

but I hope your life is stress-free

and that you don't really need to use them very often.

A little bit of stress in life is okay,

but I hope none of you have huge amounts

of stress in your life.

But anyways, thanks for watching.

Remember, if this is your first time here,

don't forget to click that red subscribe button over there

and give me a thumbs up if this video helped you learn

just a little bit more English, and if you have the time,

why don't you stick around and watch another English lesson?

(bright music)