subject: A therapist's approach to understanding & countering stress [print this page] A therapist's approach to understanding & countering stress
The Oxford English Dictionary describes stress as 'a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances'. Beyond this, there's a considerable debate about what stress is and what it means.
I'd like to offer a description and understanding of stress from a therapeutic viewpoint.
Stress is a negative state, and should be distinguished from challenge, which is usually positive and can be very useful. The body certainly needs challenges, but stress is entirely different and undesirable.
The body is amazingly adaptable and can function well within wide parameters. It can cope with unhealthy food, minimal exercise, a variety of taxing demands, pollutants, different environments and climates. Over a short period, or within certain limits, it's quite extraordinary what the body can cope with quite readily. Anything that the body can readily cope with is not stressful.
However, if the conditions become extreme, or if extra demands on the body are made over a longer period of time, the body can no longer cope and the result is stress.
Stress does not only result from excessive or prolonged physical demands; it also results from the thwarting of our emotional (or psychological) needs and wishes. If, to any significant degree or over a period of time, we are frustrated, dissatisfied, unhappy or unfulfilled the result will be stress.
Stress is simply the result of greater demands on the body than the body can handle, deriving either from stringent demands over a short timeframe, or from comparatively minor demands over a longer timeframe. Either way, as the body becomes stressed, something has to give. The results of stress are not only mental or emotional; they are also physical. If the conditions creating stress are not corrected, the body will eventually become damaged, which is to say diseased.
The symptoms of stress include aches, pains, discomfort, sleep problems, digestive difficulties, allergies and sensitivities, skin problems, tiredness, general malaise. Stress also lowers the body's resistance to infection and leads to general underperformance.
Using medication to mask the symptoms of stress is obviously counterproductive: the symptoms (and effects) of stress are there to inform us that there are things in our life we must change. If we take action promptly to reduce the causes of stress - the stressors - we can prevent any long-term harm. If we don't, serious illness can result - including ME, cancer, heart disease, and so on.
The signs of stress are therefore indispensible. They are clues that something is wrong in your life and you must change either yourself or your circumstances. Whatever the stressors are - work being too demanding; your partnership not satisfying; not drinking enough water; not sleeping enough; not having enough space and time for yourself; eating too many unhealthy foods; drinking too much alcohol; smoking; insufficient exercise; and so on - you need to make changes.
In fact, very often, perhaps more often than not, a number of different factors are combining to produce stress - it's not just one factor, but many. Stressors are cumulative. When we become aware of stress, it is often as a result of several or many different stressful factors: each one of which may seem trivial by itself.
The solution is clear. If you are suffering stress - and you will know because stress is always accompanied by stress symptoms - you need to make changesin your life.
If you don't know what your stressors are, the easiest way to find out is to visit a kinesiologist. You can also use a pendulum, although I recommend reading my articles on how to use a pendulum accurately you might even be interested to read my book, The Therapist Within You: a handbook of kinesiology self-therapy with the pendulum (www.therapistwithin.com).
There's another significant element to take into account: the strength of energizers in your life. There's also a very specific type of stress which I call the frustrated fight-or-flight response. Look out for articles on both of these topics soon.
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