Stress is the single most common presenting complaint for men starting counseling. Everyone feels stress from time to time. When it becomes overwhelming, or saturates your work and home life, it can cause a lot of problems. Chronic stress can literally shorten your life. It can also make the life you have feel not worth living.
What is stress?
Stress can be divided into two related components: the emotion we call stress and the Physiological Stress Response. The emotion of stress is one of our aversive signals, meaning it’s telling us to avoid something. When we listen to the message, we can identify what isn’t working and create a better strategy. Most people try instead to avoid the messenger altogether. This is a natural response that unfortunately leads to some unworkable strategies.
The Stress Response
The stress response is your body’s reaction to something your brain perceives as a threat. In an emergency, it can save your life, giving you the extra strength you need to fight off an attacker, or the speed to slam on the brakes and avoid an accident.
Stress can also help you rise to meet challenges. It keeps you alert when giving a presentation at work, sharpens your concentration so you can accomplish a complex task, and drives you to study for an exam instead of watching TV.
A short-term solution to a long-term problem
That heightened state has short-term benefit, but long-term cost. In the past, you might meet a predator, flee, fight, or freeze, then (assuming you survived) relax. This would take no more than a few minutes. Now, we experience that same physiological response if we choose the wrong lane in the grocery store, or if traffic is too slow, or if business isn’t going well. With prolonged exposure, stress stops being helpful and starts causing damage. Your health, your mood, your productivity, your relationships and your quality of life all start to suffer.
Some negative side effects of chronic stress:
- Memory problems, inability to concentrate and impaired judgement
- Anxious or racing thoughts
- Moodiness, irritability or short temper
- Inability to relax or feelings of unhappiness
- Feeling overwhelmed
- Disturbed sleep
- Loss of sex drive
- Increased use of alcohol, cigarettes or marijuana
- Pain, nausea, digestive problems and more frequent illness
- Procrastination or avoidance of responsibilities
Are you concerned about your, or your partner’s drinking?
How much stress is too much?
Everyone experiences stress differently. The line between benefit and harm depends on factors such as your own self-care, your support network, your intrinsic resiliency and your attitude both toward yourself and your circumstances.
You can’t always change the circumstances that are creating stress, but you can learn how to diminish the their effects. I can help you develop the habits and behaviors that will eliminate what stress you can, and increase your ability to cope with what’s left.