What is stress?

Stress is a perfectly normal and to experience stress is a normal part of life. Problems can arise when we experience too little or too much stress in relation to our ability (or our perceived ability) to cope.

So, we can think about there being two types of stress, ‘helpful’ and ‘unhelpful’:

• Helpful stress is beneficial to our health. It’s what gives us the determination and focus to do things and achieve goals. Both of these are important for good mental health and personal growth. Once helpful stress passes people normally feel relieved and even a little elated.

• Unhelpful stress is a longer-term state of mental or emotional strain or prolonged tension resulting from very difficult and demanding circumstances (or the perception of this being the case).

The level of stress we can tolerate, how we experience it and how we react to it is different from person to person. What one might find stressful, another can find challenging and rewarding. How long one can hold the pressure also varies from individual to individual.

Why do you get stressed?

Worry creates stress, triggering the body's fight-flight-freeze response, firing off the stress hormones of cortisol and adrenaline, as we prepare to run from a perceived threat.

The body is designed to cope with this for short bursts - not days or weeks or months.

How do you know when you’re stressed?

Often our first clues about being stressed are physical signs, such as tiredness, headaches or an upset stomach.

When the stress response is running, the body de-prioritises everyday jobs like digestion, cellular regeneration and healing, to give centre stage to the need to run.

What are the dangers of stress?

When you are subject to regular, repetitive or relentless stress it means your body isn't able to carry out its day-to-day functions effectively and problems start to arise, such as;

• indigestion/heartburn

• headaches

• digestive issues, such as heartburn, acid reflux or IBS

• eye or ear infections

• skin irritations, such as eczema or dermatitis

• allergy flair ups

• poor/disrupted sleep

• weight loss/gain.

When we're stuck in the stress response, the part of the body's nervous system that regulates stress hormones (the HPA axis) gets stuck – out of balance. We're stuck in a stress response and become more and more susceptible to stress. This state of stress starts to appear normal and the body gets ‘addicted’ to adrenaline.

And here's the real issue: long-term stress can cause damage to the body's immune system.

What can you do to relieve stress?

The good news is that you can learn to simply and effectively reduce and manage stress. There are a number of different tools and techniques I can share to help you to do this. We will also explore the reasons for your stress and how to address them so that you can break the ‘stress cycle’ and avoid ‘burn out’.

If you have any further questions about stress and how therapy may be able to help you, please do not hesitate to get in touch. And remember, there is no such thing as a ‘silly question’ – if it’s important to you, then it is important to me too. Get in touch by phone, email or by using the form below: