Stress
Are you feeling stress, be it stress at work or stress at home? We typically manage a tremendous number of affairs - coping at work, managing our love life, our social life, the children, the garden, the exam, the house, the holiday... We have an incredible capacity to be concerned about a great many things at once; when this concern begins to interfere with your life, you are probably stressed.
Stress Symptoms
Symptoms of stress usually include at least some of the following:
Sleeplessness
Headaches
Excessive Worry
Irritability
Mood Swings
Tiredness
Feeling Sick
Loss of Appetite
Loss of Sex Drive
Counselling Stress
In order to provide counselling for stress we would begin by making explicit the sources of stress in your life. Why are you stressed? Generally there is a fear behind each stressful issue - some consequence that you are trying to avoid that is troubling you on an unconscious level. In most cases, stress relief follows shortly after an exploration of these fears.
Another aspect of stress to which psychotherapy is excellently suited is when stress is providing a cover for another more deeply troubling issue. By overly directing our attentions towards one element of our life that we feel we can influence, we can avoid facing another that we feel we can't. This kind of discovery is one which is often troubling to come to terms with, and counselling provides the safe environment in which this can happen.
Stress Management Articles
Below is a list of articles concerning stress. These are all links to external sites and should provide a wider understanding on the subject of stress:
Stress: Trisha Macnair discusses the reasons for stress and suggests some healthy methods of coping.
Stress Management: Melinda Smith, Ellen Jaffe-Gill and Robert Segal's guide to feeling stressed.