Stress is important to life, as it’s a normal physical and emotional response to situations that make us feel threatened or unsettle our equilibrium in some way. When we sense danger, real (being attacked), or imagined (worrying about something that might happen), the body’s defences kick into action. The stress response, and automatic process called ‘fight or flight’ is activated. When a threat is perceived, your nervous system responds by releasing stress hormones, which prepare the body for emergency action. Your heart pounds faster, muscles tighten, breath quickens and your senses sharpen. These in turn increase your strength, reaction time, and enhance your focus. This stress response is the body’s way of protecting you.
The stress response, in small amounts, can also help us perform under pressure, inspire us to do our best, and to meet challenges in life, eg during work presentations, or in sport.
In our modern, hectic world, with an endless list of demands, deadlines and jobs to get done, stress has become all too common for many of us, with a lot of us working from emergency mode. If we’re feeling stressed and overwhelmed regularly, and running in acute stress mode, our mind and body feel the result and suffer from it. Our nervous system is out of balance, and this ‘toxic’ stress can cause significant damage to our health, mood, quality of life, productivity and relationships. If we are constantly open to stressful situations, the body moves from emergency stress to chronic stress, meaning the body operates in a continuous tense state.
How a person is affected by stress can be a very personal thing, along with how much we can tolerate. For example:
THINGS THAT MIGHT INFLUENCE OUR STRESS TOLERANCE LEVEL:
Our support network: We can be more vulnerable to stress, if we don’t have solid support around us, or if we are isolated.
Our sense of control: We can be more vulnerable to stress, if we feel like things are out of our control, and we feel less confident in ourselves and our ability to influence events and persist through challenges.
Our capacity to deal with our emotions: if we don’t know how to calm and soothe ourselves when we’re feeling sad or angry, we’re vulnerable to stress. Question to ask ourselves: Can I let go of my anger easily, or when I feel upset do I know how to quickly calm myself? Being able to bring our emotions into balance helps us bounce back from adversity.
Our knowledge and preparation: the more we know about a stressful event, including how something will unfold, and how long will it continue, the easier it is to cope – eg surgery. Living with the lack of information, or no information about a situation can be a very insecure place.
WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF STRESS: Stressors are the situations and pressures that cause stress. This can include anything, whether positive or negative, which compels us to adjust to change, or puts pressure or requests on us. How we react to these stressors can be different for each person. Some external stressors can be work, relationship problems, big life changes, being too busy, family, finances. There are also internal stressors such as pessimism, negative self-talk, unable to accept uncertainty, and unrealistic expectations. The more life changes we have, the more adjustments we have to make, therefore the more susceptible we are to stress. Also, many people with stress have a lot of hassles in their life, problems or struggles whether big or small that are permanently there. It could be a problem with work, finance, illness etc. It’s something that plagues us, wears us down and stress gradually builds from there.
SIGNS OF TOO MUCH STRESS: We’re all different when it comes to stress, how we experience it in our lives, and how the tension from it affects in our bodies. We need to be aware of our warning signs, whether physical, emotional or behavioural. Some Physical Signs: problem with sleeping or going back to sleep if we wake up during the night, tension headaches, tension in neck and shoulders, constipation, loss of libido, upset stomach. Some Emotional Signs: chronic fatigue, anxiety, depression, addiction, impaired short-term memory, feeling hopeless of helpless, cry or become annoyed easily.
Counselling and Stress: Counselling can help us examine our lives for stress, and recognise our own personal signs and symptoms of stress. It can help us understand what is happening to us physically and emotionally when we are stressed, and learn to take steps to reduce its damaging effects. We can come to a better understanding of ourselves, our limitations, our strengths and our capacities. We can learn to value our strengths, and develop compassion and patience for our limitations. Through counselling we can learn better ways to minimise stress in our lives, adopt healthier lifestyle habits and create self-soothing and self-care practices to better manage challenging situations. By boosting our resilience and self-belief, counselling can offer a fresh outlook on how we can cope with the stressors, giving us a better quality of life.