Helping stress & anxiety

Dissolving stress… helping ourselves in difficult times

My heart sinks as I turn on the TV to hear yet another doom and gloom story about lost jobs, bad banks and repossessions and see the impact it has on real people. It’s only natural for us to empathise and think about our own situation or the people around us, and as we start to worry we find more and more things to be concerned about. This is the one way stress can build up.

Cases of stress and anxiety are on the increase. It is more widespread than you may first think. People who are under threat of losing their homes and jobs are directly impacted but what often goes unnoticed is the impact for those for whom the worst doesn’t happen.

Businesses are becoming aware that whilst offering counselling or coaching as part of a redundancy settlement is helpful, what about the people who stay? Those who don’t get made redundant have still gone through the anxiety of not knowing and often have to accommodate increased workload or changed roles as well which increases their stress levels. The impact is not just at work, it affects family life and relationships too.

There are things we can do to empower and protect ourselves from this anxiety and manage stress. What if you had more energy to focus on possible solutions to your problems by managing the stress in your life? Wouldn’t it be great if you could get control over all those worries that keep running around in your head? How would a calmer you handle your family and relationships?

What is stress?

Stress is a natural human reaction. Its primary function is to keep us alive by giving us a burst of adrenalin when we perceive physical danger, leading to the flight or fight response. This is useful in a life or death situation, but now that the Sabre Tooth Tiger has been banished to the history books, we need this reaction less and less is western society.

Whilst short bursts of stress and anxiety can be a useful indicator that something is not right, if this feeling stays with you over a prolonged period of time, the impact on your physical health and emotional wellbeing could be huge. Even exposure to short periods of stress and anxiety lead to reduced sleep, a reduced ability to think straight, impact memory and the ability to communicate effectively.

The good news is that there are some easy things you can do to help dissolve stress when it creeps up. If you can manage your levels of stress it will help you to think more clearly and also find solutions to the problems you’re concerned about.

Next: How to deal with stress >>

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