Stress. How it affects you.

Stress is something most people experience at some point in their day. The textbook definition of stress is a physical or mental response to a challenging or threatening event. What does stress actually feels like? Stress can feel like a fast heart beat, feelings hot and sweaty, your third headache in a week, or one more thing on your thing on your schedule sending you over the deep end. And figuring out where it’s all coming from can be source of stress in and of itself. Stress can make daily life feel grueling. Especially because of the combination of physical and mental reactions it causes (or symptoms using clinical jargon). Stress can make you more depressed, angrier, more tired and can even make relationships with others more challenging.

Stress comes from anything that feels like too much to handle. Like too much going on at work/home, a nagging boss, health issues, painful memories from the past, anxiety about the future, or any combination of those things. Stress has so many sources that figuring out where it’s all coming from is often worth it own therapy session.

Therapy can help you with stress because it helps you figure it out with someone who makes an effort to see life from your point of view. Therapy can teach you how to develop habits that fit into your life to decrease stress. You may not be able to change others. You can learn to change how to manage your stressors by learning boundaries, coping skills and relating to your feelings in a different way. Stress can even become a motivator instead of a burden.

So if stress has become too big of a burden: take the first step and schedule your first session.