What is stress

Stress is a state of mental, emotional and physical strain caused by adverse life events or circumstances and affects all of us at one time or another.

It is experienced as a ‘threat’ to your well-being and immediately and automatically activates a fight or flight response. Cortisol and adrenaline are released into your system and your heart rate and blood pressure speed up. Our perceptions of the stressors are exaggerated, and we feel that our coping abilities are diminished.

Although there are common patterns, each person processes stress differently. Some of us handle stress much better than others. Why?

It’s all down to perception! How you understand and process the outside information, the meanings that you attach to these events make it very real to you, immaterial if they are real or not.

Can this be changed? Absolutely!

There are various stress management techniques which reduce the impact of stress by changing your perceptions of the stressors. This alters your responses and strengthens your coping abilities – all of which increases resilience and empowers you to deal with stress optimally. The strategies are easily and effortlessly learnt and acquired.

So …. what causes stress?

Let’s go back to a time before civilisation as we know it, where our ancestors led a completely different kind of life …

Whereas they usually experienced brief bursts of stress, we nowadays experience constant continual stresses in our everyday lives….

Ongoing tensions at work that remain unresolved … the price of entrepreneurship and all that comes with owning and managing your own business … family conflicts … friendship and relationship issues and breakdowns… finances … bills piling up … mortgages to pay … school fees … car repayments … to name but a few!

All of these stressors play and weigh on our minds.  Never far from the forefront no matter how much we try to push them to the back. And not only are we dealing with a whole new set of stressors to those of our ancestors … we also do not enjoy the same daily physical exertions and down times that they did that enabled their bodies and minds to recover physiologically and psychologically.

Instead, we keep going at a rapid pace neglecting to hit the gym and exercise or practice self-care and nurturing or taking a break … leading to chronic physical illnesses and emotional problems such as anxiety and depression.

Whether the cause of the stress is imminent physical and real… or mental and perceived, our bodies respond exactly the same way!

So unless the causes of your stress are removed or dealt with effectively, they will continue to cause problems.

NLP life coaching can help you identify and handle your stress optimally!

Contact us for a FREE info session HERE

Author – Louanne Smith