Counselling For Stress & Anxiety

Stress and anxiety are a characteristic response to tough spots throughout everyday life, like work, family, connections and cash issues. You can have counselling for stress, therapy could be a good option.

David Peak is an MBACP accredited therapist and counsellor in Manchester, he is currently accepting stress management consultations via online sessions and face to face.

Stress, simply put, is a physiological and mental condition, where the external situation overwhelms the person’s internal resources to cope.

How does stress affect your health?

The link between ‘stress’ and health – both mental and physical – is long established. Physically, Stress is a person’s response to threat or danger, and the fact of not having the resources needed at that point to manage, hence falling into a ‘stressed state’.

It is important to distinguish chronic stress from other stress disorders – a prolonged state of stress without much management or relief that can adapt the body and mind to a state of hypervigilance in which people may even Didn’t realize this was the case. This has the most devastating effect on the body — adrenal fatigue, which basically means the adrenal glands get used to releasing the chemicals adrenaline and cortisol frequently. These are useful tools when the body needs energy to fight external stressors or exercise situations, but in normal life situations, a high level of adrenal response can lead to long-term physiological damage because the body is actually constantly responding to challenges.

In layman’s terms, this means increased breathing, i.e. shortness of breath, increased heart rate in response to danger, increased pulse rate, increased blood pressure, muscle tension, dilated pupils and sweating. You may be familiar with some or all of these symptoms. If you’re familiar with all of this on a regular basis, you need to consider whether you suffer from chronic stress, which is actually a very challenging form of stress in terms of its deep effects on the body and its relationship to anxiety and depression.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines stress as: “the reaction people may have when presented with demands and pressures that are not matched to their knowledge and abilities and which challenge their ability to cope.”

Dealing With Stress

Counselling is a safe and secure zone to bring your stress. It can be broken down into three stages:

First, it is pure stress relief, without carefully constructing facts, but sharing real experiences that create a connection between counselor and client.

Next comes the formulation of stressors and triggers, as you think deeply about what caused the person to become stressed. This step helps to raise awareness.

Finally, we focus on physical ways to reduce stress by modulating its effects on the body.

What to expect from stress counselling

If attributable to a discrete stressor I’d use cognitive therapy to help either change circumstances or accept them; if due to an identifiable traumatic experience I’d use EMDR to process it so it’s recognised as in the past and not relevant to present or future. If can’t be identified or it too many to process individually I’d use neurofeedback possibility combined with cognitive behavioural therapy.

Stress and anxiety often go hand in hand, so taking the time to differentiate an individual’s responses to their triggers will be part of the process. The word “process” is key here because working with clients dealing with stress is always a process rather than a clearly defined strategy.

In general, at least 6 sessions are recommended to benefit from the consistency and commitment of the counselling, and feel a certain amount of relief. The most important outcome will be increased awareness of stressors and the ability to accurately predict when stressors reach the body.

Awareness leads to choice and allows the individual to see all the different possibilities more clearly from a distance rather than being deeply ingrained. Empower choice because it means we can slowly move into self-preservation rather than waiting for circumstances to change. We are effectively teaching ourselves to be better equipped and to deal with stress more effectively through extended coping styles rather than hoping or wishing that stressful situations go away.

Related Counselling Services

Neurofeedback
Couples & Relationship Counselling
Person Centred Therapy
Depression Counselling
Anxiety Counselling

Get In Touch

As always please see links for other pages on this website, and if you need to talk about your own personal experiences or would like to arrange to see a counsellor in Manchester or Online, then please leave me a message on the contact form or give me a call.