Coping and Dealing With Stress and Anxiety
See also dealing with work related stress; Learn to overcome panic attacks and exam stress – understand it and tackle it
When external factors make demands on us that exceed our ability to cope we can start to feel stress and anxiety. Feeling stressed is more than uncomfortable – it affects us physically, emotionally, and socially.
Most commonly, the symptoms of stress can manifest as irritability and short temper, frequent and prolonged headaches, impaired concentration, disturbed eating patterns and digestion, sleep disturbance and loss of sex-drive. These symptoms will affect how you live your life and have an impact in all areas. If the cause of the stress is the workplace it will impact on your relationship at home at create a double-whammy. Similarly, stress arising from personal life issues such as relationship breakdown, bereavement, health issues, or financial problems will impact negatively on how you perform at work – creating its own stress. Whichever way round, stress can be destructive if not dealt with early.
Therapy can help you tackle and ultimately reduce your stress by identifying the underlying mechanism. Stress is ultimately fuelled by worry and fear, and talking through your stress and anxiety with a therapist skilled in this area will help you get more awareness of how the pressures on you are affecting you and help you identify resources that might help you. The advantage of cognitive behavioural therapy for stress and anxiety is that it is focussed on identifying the thoughts that underpin your fears and helps by getting you reassess accurately the significance of any perceived threats to your well-being and offers tools and strategies to help overcome them.
How stressed am I? – Click this link toTake the mood analysis tool and get an indication of your emotional wellness.
To find a therapist to help you deal with stress and anxiety:
If you are in South Wales
For other parts of the UK counselling directory.org will help you find a therapist near your postcode – but remember to ask the therapist how much experience they have of dealing with this issue and how confident they are of being able to help you.