Stress, anxiety and depression can be made worse when we feel alone with it or feel as if no one else can understand what we’re going through or how hard it is. It can feel very isolating and very frightening, as if the feelings will last forever and it can feel as if there is no clear way out of the feelings of stress, anxiety or depression.
Stress is very common, with the Mental Health Foundation finding in 2018 that over 74% of people have felt so stressed they have felt overwhelmed and unable to cope.
Mental health statistics: stress | Mental Health Foundation
The use of the word stress in everyday language can sometimes minimise the impact that it has on people. Feeling stressed and perhaps overwhelmed is a difficult place to be, especially if that is something that is occurring on a regular basis. Sometimes those feelings of stress and overwhelm can become so familiar that it just feels normal to us. Long term stress can lead to physical health problems such as headaches, dizziness, stomach problems and chest pain, (see Get help with stress – NHS (www.nhs.uk)) and also other mental health issues such as difficulty concentrating, constantly worrying, difficulty making decisions, and can lead to anxiety or depression.
Stress can be a good thing, it’s the feeling that encourages us to get moving and sort something out, or that danger is approaching and we need to act now. The problem with stress is when we don’t learn how to regulate ourselves, how to ‘come down’ from the stress and feel calm again. We can see animals in nature have this ability inbuilt to react to stress then quite literally shake it off. Humans can very often retain the stress in their bodies because they either do not know how to discharge the stress, or they are unaware of the level of stress because it has become their ‘normal’.
Stress can feel as if we’re stuck on a hamster wheel, each turn feeling more stressful than the next, and we’re not in control of being put on the wheel, we just have to keep on it with no way of getting off it, which can then feel terrifying. If we don’t learn ways of relieving stress on a regular basis, these feelings can build up and can lead to chronic stress. Counselling for stress can help by giving you space to work through the issues that are causing you stress, helping to identify triggers and ways to manage and relieve stress that would work for you. Counselling for stress can also help by allowing you to identify the feelings of stress at much earlier, which means that the feelings don’t build up so much and can therefore mean you feel much more relaxed and happier in the long run.
Counselling for stress can really help by bringing into our awareness the feelings of stress and the underlying causes and triggers. It can help on a practical, immediate level to teach us techniques to discharge stress, but also on a deeper level to look at the causes of our stress and how we may be contributing to it by repeating patterns that are not healthy for us. This is often not a conscious choice but is due to beliefs that we have been taught in childhood and can be difficult to identify because they may be out of our awareness. Counselling for stress can help to unpick those beliefs and the feelings that are rooted within those beliefs.
Anxiety can cause us to feel engulfed by it, as if we are our anxiety and we are trapped feeling that way, it can feel like a wave of overwhelming feelings that has no end. Anxiety can manifest itself in different ways in different people, including social anxiety, panic attacks, and OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). There are lots of different techniques that can help minimise the day to day effects of anxiety, such as mindfulness, meditation and grounding/orienting techniques. A great grounding technique is the 54321 method; when you are feeling anxious, say out loud:
5 things you can see
4 things you can feel
3 things you can hear
2 things you can smell
1 thing you can taste
Counselling for anxiety can really help by giving practical resources to help when anxious feelings come up, but also to help to get underneath the issue and learn what is triggering for us, and how we can make different choices to respond to it. It can also be really helpful to learn, through counselling, that we are not in a helpless, hopeless place (although it can absolutely feel like that), but that we are able to make choices to support ourselves. Anxiety is really common, but it can feel quite shameful as it can appear as if everyone else is coping really well and it’s only us that feel so anxious. Counselling can help by giving a non-judgemental space to work through those feelings in a supported environment.
Depression can feel incredibly stuck, stagnant, can feel as if the low, deadened feelings will never end, there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Depression can be extremely debilitating and can sometimes feel very frightening and as if it won’t end. Also if there doesn’t appear to be an obvious cause for the low feelings it can feel even more overwhelming and confusing. Counselling for depression can help by allowing you to be able to be supported with your feelings and to work through them at a pace to suit you. It can help to get to the root cause of the depression, and that awareness can bring about real change.
Counselling can really help with stress, anxiety and depression. It’s a way of giving yourself space to be able to explore what’s going on for you and to be able to feel supported whilst sitting with those feelings of stress, anxiety and depression. This can feel quite difficult at first, which is why our business is called Courage Counselling, because it take real courage to be able to turn towards our feelings and allow ourselves to be vulnerable enough to explore them. Being able to sit with our feelings of stress, anxiety or depression can feel very difficult at first, this is why the relationship with your counsellor is key. The most important thing in a counselling relationship is that clients feel that they can open up to their therapist – it’s a case of trusting your gut and making sure that you get a good initial feeling about your therapist and that it feels safe for you to embark on counselling therapy for stress, anxiety or depression with them.
