Stress

Not all stress is bad and stress comes form good things as well as bad, like a job promotion, a new home and a new baby.  Additionally, the same things that cause you stress may not cause stress in other people. It is how you think about and react to certain events that determine whether or not they are stressful for you. Your reaction to stress can affect your mental and physical health as well as your personal and professional life, so it is important for you to learn how to deal effectively with stress.

Stress is the mental and physical wear and tear you experience in getting through your ever changing life. Stress can be a helpful motivator and a normal amount of stress can help you to succeed.  However, too much stress can negatively affect your mind, body, and spirit.

Every day you must energize your physical and mental resources to respond to changing demands and pressures.  If the mobilization needed is frequent, extreme, or prolonged your body and mind send out signals that you are in distress and need to do something about it.  These body and mind signals are typically things like irritability, anger, fatigue, anxiety, headaches, depression, stomachaches, hypertension, migraines, ulcers, heart attacks, or colitis. Eventually, stress can lead to even more serious problems such as cancer, diabetes, thyroid dysfunction, and even death (Just ask any physician and they will confirm that indeed stress can, and does, kill.). 

Stress can be seen as acute stress, chronic stress, and traumatic stress.  Whether stress is acute or chronic depends on how frequently it is experienced and if it is of short term or long term duration. 

Our emotional reactions to acute stress are usually things like distrust, rejection, irritability, anger, moodiness, depression and poor concentration.  Typical physical symptoms include tension headaches, gastrointestinal disturbances, rashes, sleep problems, sweating, dizziness, nausea, and reduced ability to fight off such things as infections, colds, flu, and viruses. 

Long term chronic stress can help produce serious illnesses such as diabetes and decreased immune system capabilities. Our reactions to stress that borders between acute and chronic tend to be things like migraines, chronic fatigue, high blood pressure, stroke, heart attack, anxiety, depression, ulcers and colitis. 

Traumatic stress is the result of massive acute stress, the effects of which can effect you years; an example is Post traumatic stress disorder.

Stress and its reactions are very real and can have devastating results. Below are some interesting statistics on stress that helps to show the impact of stress on each of us and on our world:

World wide, more than 3 out of 5 doctor visits are for stress related problems and it is estimated that over 75% of all complaints brought to general practice physicians are stress related.

25% to 40% of job burn-out for U.S. workers is blamed on stress.

Depression, only one type of stress reaction, was the leading occupational disease of the 21st century, responsible for more days lost than any other single factor.

It is estimated that $300 billion, or $7,500 per employee, is spent annually in the U.S. on stress-related compensation claims, reduced productivity, absenteeism, health insurance costs, direct medical expenses and employee turnover.

The best way to cope with stress is to prevent it, but it is impossible to have a completely stress-free life.  Controlling and reducing your stress level is critical. 

Stress and its problems are responsive to counseling and to a wide variety of therapeutic approaches. Therapy typically emphasizes cognitive and behavioral elements and traditional psychotherapy and reality therapy may be used.   Therapy techniques can include relaxation and time-limited therapy that address ways of coping with the stress symptoms directly.

Certain antidepressant medications and mild tranquilizers are sometimes prescribed by your physician to help lessen some of the symptoms, while the main problems are worked on in therapy.

For more information about stress, please click on the linked websites listed below.

"If you really want help dealing with your feelings and emotions, changing your behavior, and improving your life, I will be happy to help you.  I am available almost any time and any place.  You can call me directly and there is no cost or obligation for the initial telephone consultation.  Or you can reach me by email.  I look forward to the possibility of helping you to improve your life."   Dr. Vince Berger