Mindfulness Counselling for Stress in London
Have you ever felt like you are ‘Caving in’ under the pressure – things are mounting up, priorities get all confused and your ‘to do’ lists are crumbling? This is the time when you are likely to say “I am so stressed!”
This often happens when we cross the line between feeling challenged, stretched, excited and motivated to feeling pressured, rushed, exhausted and flustered.
Feeling stressed can also be triggered by not being challenged and stimulated enough – triggering feelings of anxiety, not feeling good enough and feeling a dread of disaster.
Mindfulness Counselling for stress will help you to gain an insight to your ‘stress points’ and how they are triggered, you will also learn mindfulness based techniques which you can use in a daily life and which will make you more ‘stress-proof’.
What is stress?
Stress is primarily a physical response to ‘overload’, and the threshold of when this happens is different for each individual. When you reach overload your nervous system perceives the situation as a survival threat and triggers a ‘fight or flight’ mode, causing the body to release hormones necessary to stimulate a physical response to the perceived danger, which in turn causes physiological reactions: the heart beats faster pumping blood to muscles, your breathing accelerates to provide oxygen for action and unnecessary functions to the present emergency – such as digestion or the reasoning part of the brain, get switched off.
The ‘fight or flight’ response is super-efficient and very useful when the danger is real – a tiger charging at you or a bus swerving towards you.
However, in modern life we may trigger the same ‘fight or flight’ response to ‘non life threatening’ scenarios such as approaching deadlines or being asked to give a presentation. These situations have no physical dangers to them and yet they still cause the body to trigger the ‘fight or flight’ response with all the range of physical and emotional responses that can then disrupt your life and well-being.
What makes things more complicated is that you may not associate the physical complaints with stress and its causes, because you may not know you are stressed. When stressed we are likely to have emotional responses which seem completely appropriate and justified, because we believe that the danger is real and consequently do not see our reactions as excessive or out of character.
It is therefore important to understand what the common emotional and physical symptoms of stress are. When you are aware of your reactions you are more likely to take action to change the situation that is the ‘stressor’. As one of my clients said “I know that I’m stressed when my sense of humour goes”, for you it may be forgetting little things, or becoming irritable about noise, which usually wouldn’t happen.
Bring a sense of calm back with mindfulness counselling for stress.
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What are the common sings of stress?
Emotional symptoms of stress include:
Excessive worry, irritability, anxiety, panic, depression, apprehension, uneasiness, unease, overwhelm, disquiet, feeling harassed, feeling exhausted, unable to switch off, wired but tired, stressed out
Physical symptoms of stress to look out for:
Sleep problems, difficulty concentrating / focusing, Loss of appetite / indigestion, Sweating, Heart burn, Headaches, Muscle tension / muscle twitching, Drinking more, Impotence, Back aches, skin rashes, acne, constipation and or diarrhoea, haemorrhoids.
Dealing with stress – Mindfulness stress management techniques
The simple practical techniques below help you to adopt a healthy life style and counteract some of the physical impact of stress response:
- Prioritise your health
- Get a good night’s sleep
- Practice deep breathing
- Stay hydrated
- Eat for wellbeing
- Get moving to combat stress
- Adopt a positive mind set
- Master your time
- Don’t be a slave to tech
- Learn to say ‘No’
Counselling and Mindfulness for Stress with Anna
Stress is impossible to avoid. What is possible and achievable is understanding your own reactions and trigger points in stressful situations, before it takes over. It is also possible to change your response to stressful situations when they are already happening. Mindfulness Counselling for stress with Anna will help you to gain an insight to your ‘stress points’ and how they are triggered, you will also learn mindfulness based techniques which you can use in a daily life and which will make you more ‘stress-proof’.
