Overwhelmed by Stress?

We all have a certain amount of stress in our lives, but sometimes it can seem impossible to balance your personal life, professional responsibilities, and other things going on in your life, while still finding time to do what you need to in order to take of yourself.

Stress can result from a number of factors including:

• Stress concerning relationships, family issues or interpersonal conflict
  
 
• Stress related to work or school responsibilities, poor supervision and lack of support, and dealing with difficult co-workers
  
 
• Stress from a lack of meaningful work or sense of purpose or direction in your life
 
• Stress due to personal issues such as loneliness and isolation, change and transition or uncertainty about the future
  
 
• Stress regarding concerns about health or finances, or the well-being of yourself or someone you care about
  
 
• Stress from simply having too many things going on and being busy all the time
  

Too much stress can lead to a number of negative consequences such as:

• Feeling tired, overwhelmed and burnt out
  
 
• Irritability, anger, anxiety and depression
  
 
• Difficulty relaxing and sleeping
  
 
• Interpersonal conflict and relationship issues
 
• Physical symptoms such as increased heart rate, headaches, or tension and physical pain
 
• Health issues such as elevated blood pressure, heart problems, and various digestive disorders

How Stress Management Can Help

You'll never be able to avoid stress altogether, but you can learn effective stress management strategies to help you prevent stress from accumulating, causing problems or getting in the way of your ability to enjoy yourself and your life.

When you come for counselling for stress management, we'll examine the sources of stress you're facing and the effect that stress has been having on you. Then we'll develop strategies to help you reduce your stress and to manage the stress you do have more effectively.

I'm a Guelph therapist who specializes in stress management. I’ll help you:

• Recognize your triggers and early warning signs of stress, and learn steps you can take to help you deal with stress before it becomes overwhelming.
  


• Explore behaviours and patterns of thinking that are contributing to your stress and changes in these areas that can help you reduce stress.
  


• Examine lifestyle changes that can decrease your level of stress and make it easier to manage the stress that is present in your life.
  
  
• Develop assertiveness skills and strategies to deal with interpersonal conflict.


• Learn relaxation and mindfulness techniques that can reduce stress and help you cope better when you do experience stress.

Even though you'll never be able to eliminate all the sources of stress from your life, stress management counselling will help you learn strategies to reduce and manage stress, relieve stress when it does arise, and find ways to not allow stress to interfere with your health and quality of life.

You can read more about stress on my blog, where you'll also find a number of posts about stress management and stress reduction strategies you can incorporate into your life. You can read more about how I can help you use mindfulness to reduce and manage stress on my mindfulness-based therapy website.