Stress Management - Donovan Rabie

Stress Management with Life Coaching

Life Coaching for stress management is an effective method for dealing with the challenges of stress. This page will delve deeper into what stress is, and discover its causes and symptoms. We will also explore how to cope with stress, and how Life Coaching for stress management can help.

We all experienced stress at one stage or another. It can be caused by our professional or personal lives, and each individual will cope with it differently. What one person may regard as highly stressful, another person may regard as highly motivational.

Problems occur when individuals perceive themselves as unable to cope with the level of stress they face. This can then impact both their mental and physical health. Most of us think we know what stress is. Yet it seems to be a catch-all term that’s used to describe feelings ranging from minor irritation to the cause of a mental and/or physical breakdown. There isn’t a strict medical definition, so it can be difficult to find out what the causes are.

What Is Stress?

Stress can help or hinder a person depending on their ability to cope. It can motivate individuals to perform at their optimum level and boost energy. However, as a hindrance, it can cause major health problems. It’s caused by the body’s natural reaction to defend itself, so in an emergency, stress will force us to exert maximum effort to protect ourselves. Yet when our body is prepared to face an emergency and no emergency happens, all the extra energy has nowhere to go, which can cause problems. Feelings of anger, depression, distrust and rejection can permeate. If we live with these feelings for too long, the consequences for our mental and physical health can be dire. It can ultimately lead to headaches, insomnia and high blood pressure. So it’s no surprise that people are trying to find the best tried and tested ways to effectively relieve and deal with it.

Most of us can deal with a certain amount, as we know it’s part of our day-to-day lives. We just manage to push on and get on with everything. Yet suffering from chronic stress is physically, psychologically and emotionally draining. When it reaches this stage, it’s classed as a ‘stress disorder’. These disorders can be very debilitating; they can prevent us from fulfilling our potential in both our professional and personal lives. Very few people know any effective stress management techniques or how to cope with stress in its severe forms. In some cases, the individual may not even know the causes.

Causes & Symptoms

Causes of Stress

As each individual deals with it differently, it can be hard to identify the exact cause. However, there are a number of common causes. The brain doesn’t tend to distinguish between real or imaginary stress. It’s often created by what we think will happen rather than what will actually happen.

A number of common causes include:

big changes
high-pressure environments
constant worrying
not having enough going on in your life
not have any control over a situation
having an overwhelming amount of responsibility
injury, illness or long-term health problems
bereavement
breaking up with a partner or getting a divorce
being a carer for a relative or friend who needs a lot of support
losing your job
retirement
problems with housing conditions
money worries

‘Happy’ events such as marriage or moving house can also cause stress. This is because along with the excitement, these situations bring massive changes in your life. These ‘happy’ situations can be difficult to deal with due to the pressure or need to feel happy. If you know a certain situation is causing these feelings, Life Coaching for stress management might be able to help.

Symptoms

If you are experiencing stress you may exhibit physical, emotional and/or behavioural changes.

Physical changes. When you are in a demanding situation, your body releases more ‘fight or flight’ chemicals to prepare for a potential emergency. Adrenaline raises your blood pressure, increases the rate at which you sweat and increases your heart rate. These chemicals can also reduce your stomach activity and blood flow to your skin. Cortisol releases sugar and fat into your body, yet it also hampers the effectiveness of your immune system. These internal changes make it easier for you to run away or fight.
Sadly, these changes won’t help you when you’re in a busy office environment or on the tube in rush hour. You won’t be able to fight, nor will you be able to run away. So in turn, you won’t be able to use up the chemicals your body has produced. If this happens continuously, the changes that the chemicals produce can damage your health. As a result, you could feel nauseous and experience indigestion and headaches. You might perspire more, suffer from aches and pains, have heart palpitations and start to breathe faster. In the long term, there might be a risk of strokes and heart attacks.

Emotional changes. There are a number of feelings you may experience when going through a demanding situation. These include frustration, fear, anger, depression and anxiety. The unfortunate thing about these feelings is that they can feed on each other, which can lead to physical symptoms. Extreme anxiety, which can be caused by stress, can cause headaches, heart palpitations and giddiness. These symptoms may lead you to feel even more stressed as you may worry you have an even more serious condition.

Behavioural changes. You may start to behave differently when you become stressed. As an example, you may become indecisive, defensive or withdrawn. You may find it difficult to get to sleep. And even if you are normally a mild-mannered individual, you may become physically or verbally aggressive.

Life Coaching for Stress Management

A Life Coach can help address your stress and anxiety levels. With the help of a Life Coach, you may be able to identify the cause(s) of your stress. Or you may find it’s a past experience, a situation, a physical issue or something to do with a relationship that’s the main cause. After discovering the root of the problem, you will then agree upon a goal. This goal could include how you would like to feel and what you would like to do in life without stress holding you back. Your Life Coach will then work with you to achieve your goals using a variety of different techniques. Each therapist might use different techniques, but they all will work towards the same goal. Life Coaching for stress management can start to work in a few sessions, but it entirely depends on your reaction to the therapy. After attending a number of sessions you may start to feel more relaxed and confident in the situations that previously caused you to feel stressed.

How to cope with stress

Different occupations will be more demanding than others, and in work, stress is recognised to be one of the main causes of sick absence from work. Research suggests that about half a million people in the UK experience work-related stress that they believe is making them ill. Changes in personal lives, such as the death of a loved one, a new relationship, a job promotion or the birth of a child can also cause it as adjustments in our lives are needed to be able to cope. The aim should never be to eliminate stress completely but find effective ways of managing it and using it to our advantage.

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