All Stressed Up is a Leeds Animation Workshop production challenges several popular assumptions about workplace stress. Is stress just a bosses’ disease? Is stress-related illness a sign of personal inadequacy? And can just a little bit of stress hurt you? This film reveals that those in repetitive, low-paid jobs are particularly at risk of stress-related illness, which can have serious physical and mental effects. Many jobs involve stress, and the problem often lies not with the worker, but in the workplace itself. Occupational stress can be wholly or partly responsible for many illnesses, including asthma and ulcers.

While it raises many serious questions about the causes and effects of stress, this film is also accessible and entertaining. Most of the animated characters are at high risk from stress because they are low-status clerical workers and because they are women. They have to deal with a wide range of problems including bad management, job design, VDUs, sexual harassment and the pressure of their ‘dual role’.