What is stress?
Everyone at some point will experience stress. Stress is the body's reaction to pressure or threat. Stress can take many forms. The first thing to remember about stress is that it is normal and can help motivate us to get things done. Stress becomes a problem when you feel overwhelmed, experience physical symptoms, and you feel you can’t get things done. Stress can be something big like a relationship break-up or a build up of lots of little things over a few months.
Most common stressors in the UK;
Work
Finances
Family
Health
Relationships
How does stress affect us?
When we feel stressed the hormone cortisol is released and this helps us in times of stress to be motivated to get things done. Cortisol is sometimes called the stress hormone. We need cortisol to regulate our sleep cycle, increase blood sugar, control blood pressure, and reduce inflammation. Cortisol is released when we feel threatened or pressured. When cortisol is present to a high level for a long period of time it can cause issues. Cortisol is released in the morning to help you wake up but if it is present to a high level because of stress it can keep you awake when you need to sleep. Cortisol lowers immunity so you get more colds and flus than normal as your body is not resting as it should. Other physical signs of too much cortisol can be difficulty concentrating, digestive troubles, headaches, and weight gain. Think of having too much cortisol as trying to run a marathon at the pace of a sprint, it is just wearing the body out. Stress affects everyone different, one person might find a situation exciting, but another would find it stressful, like speaking in front of a lot of people.
How do I reduce stress?
There are lots of things that you can do to help your stress levels. Exercise is good for reducing stress levels. You don’t have to become a gym rat to get the benefit, it could be a few minutes of walking at lunchtime or household chores. Try handing responsibility for tasks to family/friends/work colleagues if possible and remind yourself you don't have to do it all right now. Pay attention to yourself rather than putting yourself last and think about what is restorative for you. Simple steps like maintaining a routine can help. It does not have to be a big routine, just simply getting up at the same time each day, can be a step to creating a routine that works for you. Make time within your week to do things you find fun. Talk about how you are feeling with those you trust. Minimise your exposure to stressful things, like not watching the news if that makes you feel stressed.
How can counselling help?
Counselling can help you identify what is the cause of the stress, it is much easier to manage or get rid of the stress if you know what caused it in the first place. Counselling can help you build the strategies that you need to manage your stress levels, and this will not only reduce your stress now but build resilience against stress for the future. Counselling can also help you look at what changes you would like to make to your life overall and help you make decisions that may remove the stressors or make them more manageable. Stress can make you feel that you don't have time to have counselling sessions but it is useful to view counselling like planning time, planning how to do something makes the actual task take less time. Counselling does not have to be weekly, it can be fortnightly or monthly so it might not take up as much time as you think.
For further information contact me at info@forcounselling.co.uk.
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