Chester Counselling offers relationship counselling, psychotherapy and family counselling throughout Chester and Cheshire

Stress

Stress is a force which can work to our benefit or detriment depending on the quantity and duration of stress and also our coping or resilience.

Without a certain amount of stress we would not perform well.

Stress gives us energy and motivates us.

This can be really helpful in short bursts but if stress is prolonged and of high quantity it can affect us negatively and leave us feeling "stressed".

Modern life has become more speeded up in recent decades and people feel pressure to rush to keep up.

Being a high achieving person keeps stress high.

The current recession adds to the pressure to keep working and people may feel they have no option but to stay in high stress situations to keep paying bills etc.

Feeling under or over challenged in or by work will each bring stress.

People feel more stressed when they:

• Increase work hours
• Don't say no or delegate
• Have perfectionist values
• Procrastinate/ avoid
• Work outside work hours- after work or work through breaks
• Bottle up feelings and don't talk about what they are going through.

Holmes and Rahe (1967) devised a stress inventory which shows how stress accumulates and can leave you vulnerable to stress related problems if you are trying to manage a lot of stress over a short time period. Over 300 life units means a person has an 80% chance of developing a stress related illness.

Life event	Life change units
Death of a spouse	100
Divorce	73
Marital separation	65
Imprisonment	63
Death of a close family member	63
Personal injury or illness	53
Marriage	50
Dismissal from work	47
Marital reconciliation	45
Retirement	45
Change in health of family member	44
Pregnancy	40
Sexual difficulties	39
Gain a new family member	39
Business readjustment	39
Change in financial state	38
Death of a close friend	37
Change to different line of work	36
Change in frequency of arguments	35
Major mortgage	32
Foreclosure of mortgage or loan	30
Change in responsibilities at work	29
Child leaving home	29
Trouble with in-laws	29
Outstanding personal achievement	28
Spouse starts or stops work	26
Begin or end school	26
Change in living conditions	25
Revision of personal habits	24
Trouble with boss	23
Change in working hours or conditions	20
Change in residence	20
Change in schools	20
Change in recreation	19
Change in church activities	19
Change in social activities	18
Minor mortgage or loan	17
Change in sleeping habits	16
Change in number of family reunions	15
Change in eating habits	15
Vacation	13
Christmas	12
Minor violation of law	11

Consequences to stress can be:

• Physical /health involving anxiety symptoms and physical consequences like high blood pressure, stomach ulcers migraines, allergies, irritable bowel etc.
• Behavioural - sleep problems, becoming easily upset or angry, becoming more withdrawn, changes in eating patterns, drinking more alcohol or smoking more.
• Cognitive - Stress makes it tricky to concentrate and make decisions. It can affect your thinking negatively.
• Mood - Stress can leave you feeling down anxious moody over emotional and tearful.

These can result in increased sick time from work, difficult communication in work or even home life and can result in poor job satisfaction or poor performance at work.

Counselling can help you understand the sources of stress and work to change and reduce your stress.

Counselling might involve working on relaxation, goal setting/planning/ time management and learning to delegate, stop procrastinating, become more assertive or other interpersonal or communication work.

Claire McCluskey has experience working with stress related issues and has worked with employee assistance programmes to help people manage work stress.

As work stress colours home life too sometimes this stress will bring a couple to counselling as it may begin to affect the relationship.