Stress Management
What is Stress?
Below is a free Self-Assessment Form in PDF format to determine how coaching could help you determine the areas of life causing you the greatest stress.
Stress is the body’s response to the demands made on it. When we experience something exhilarating, joyful, passionate, and so on, the body responds with eustress. When we experience something that is traumatic, scary, painful, anger-inducing, et cetera, the body responds with distress. Neither kind of stress is good or bad in itself – both can help us and both can hurt us.
(In a hurry? Click here or scroll down to the bottom of the page to contact me for stress management help and for three FREE stress management tools!)
Stress can be caused by events that happen to us, by situations we find ourselves in, or even by our attitudes and thoughts. We can think, feel, remember or imagine ourselves into stress very easily. It’s not uncommon for couples, for example, to have a fight when one reacts to something they ASSUMED (imagined!) his or her partner was saying or even thinking. Or for an employee to begin to sweat and clench his or her muscles when called to the boss’s office. If you’ve ever had a serious car accident or been seriously ill, you can trigger stress responses just by remembering the details of the event.
How Can Stress Help?
When we are stimulated by an experience, the hypothalamus sends a message to the adrenal glands, and within seconds our minds and bodies enter into an intricate response that makes us more alert, able to think faster, and more sensitive to our surroundings. It increases our heart rate, pumps out more adrenalin so we are stronger and quicker. We can see better, hear better – all our senses are stimulated. At the same time, all functions of the body that are not needed in our response shut down. Without stress, we would not be able to function efficiently and effectively when those physical responses are needed to do the task at hand. Stress is what keeps us focused to meet a deadline, be sharp and quick to avert an accident, get a burst of energy to finish a race, find the strength to leap after a Frisbee, and so on.
How Can Stress Hurt?
When we are stressed, our systems are taxed heavily. Our bodies are not designed to sustain the high-adrenalin state for long. Many of our normal functions shut down during times of stress – digestion shuts down, respiration becomes shallow and quick, our capillaries close cutting off oxygen to the surface of our bodies. Perhaps the most dangerous effect of stress is that it shuts off our immune system, making us more prone to illness and disease. Unmanaged stress leads to fatigue, anxiety, depression, hypertension, cardiac problems, stroke, autoimmune disorders and other serious problems. Dr. Bruce Lipton of the Stanford Medical Center says that stress is the primary cause of 95% of all illness. This is backed up by studies at Harvard, New York University and other prestigious medical research facilities.
What Can We Do About Hurtful Stress?
Since stress itself is inevitable, it is vital that we know how to manage it. Stress has to be dealt with effectively and released from the body quickly. Ignoring it or denying it just makes it worse.
There are many effective ways of managing our stress. Meditation, exercise, cognitive restructuring, creative expression, laughter are but a few of the simple yet powerful techniques that can reduce or eliminate the effects of stress very efficiently. In STRESS MANAGEMENT COACHING, I teach these and other methods to clients, focusing on the specific ones that prove to work best for the individual client. I also teach these skills to:
- EMPLOYERS, so they can work with their employees to avoid burnout;
- COUPLES, so they can improve their communications and their relationships;
- HELPING PROFESSIONALS, such as coaches, nurses, therapists, etc., to share with their clients;
- LEADERS, to help them use their stress to their best advantage without becoming victim to it.
In my work with countless individuals and a variety of companies and organizations in diverse fields – such as insurance, utilities, treatment centers, and education, for example – I have seen that simple stress management tools can be very effective in increasing productivity, enhancing personal and professional relationships, and promoting better mental, emotional and physical health.
You CAN reduce and manage your stress.
Click Here for a free, no-obligation consultation to learn how.
To get you started, here are a few free stress-management tools that you can download as PDF files:
20 Simple Stress Reducing Strategies
Easy ways to deal with stress, often in seconds!
How to Create Monster Stress
A tongue-in-cheek list of what NOT to do!
Out-Smarting Stress
Combines cognitive restructuring with relaxation response methods.
