Counselling for stress aims to address the triggers or reasons you are feeling stressed and work with you to develop skills to managing your time, energy, thoughts and emotions to reduce your stress response.
What is Stress?
Stress is part of life and coping with a certain amount can be desirable, challenging us to stretch ourselves and reach our potential. For those living and working in London’s hectic and sometimes high pressured environment there is even more stress.
However too much stress can leave us feeling constantly harried and overwhelmed and has a negative impact on health. Therapy for stress explores the root causes and finds ways to manage the triggers to your stress response.
What causes stress, why am I stressed when others aren’t?
Stress is not an emotion but a response to physical or mental triggers that we may encounter. What those triggers are is unique to each individual. What one person views as ‘stressful’ another might consider a challenge or even fun. During stress management therapy you will explore why the scenario triggers your stress or anxiety.
The health impact of coping with too much stress
The consequences of not managing stress in our lives is that it can have an impact on our physical and mental wellbeing.
Common symptoms of too much stress are:
- disrupted sleep or insomnia
- upset digestion and bowel habits
- palpitations, twitching muscles, sweating profusely
- irritability, anxiety, depression
What sort of counselling can help with stress?
During your stress counselling session a therapist will address the causes and work with you to develop skills in managing your time, energy, thoughts and emotions to reduce stress.
Some therapists will work on identifying the triggers and discussing the reasons ‘why you find the situation stressful?’, other therapists might employ techniques to help you to minimise your response to the situation.
Two effective forms of stress therapy are:
- Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for stress, which helps you understand your thought patterns, recognise your trigger points and identify positive actions you can take.
- Mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR), which combines mindfulness, meditation and yoga with a particular focus on reducing stress.
Therapy for stress in London
To find an experienced therapist who offers counselling for stress and help cope with feelings of being overwhelmed take a look at the profile pages of therapists who have their private practice at City Therapy Rooms.
Helpful resources and articles on understanding stress and managing it
Help Guide
This website has some very useful articles that clearly explain many mental health issues. Here they offer advice on stress symptoms and signs that you may be under too much stress
Stress symptoms, signs & causes
The BBC have created this video that gives you some useful tools to manage your stress.
This video created by Sharon Horesh Bergquist for TEDed explains how stress effects the body
© Brian Cotsen
