Hypnotherapy for Stress

What is Stress?

Not only is stress a normal part of our daily lives, but it is an absolutely necessary factor in our ability to relate effectively to the outside World.

We all have a natural FREEZE, FLIGHT or FIGHT Response (Which used to be known as the Fight or Flight Response) that helps us to react accordingly to whatever we have to deal with.

Stress stimulates an action and in most cases can be referred to as “Positive Stress”.

However, in today’s society, people are exposed to more and more stressful situations that tests their ability to deal with it effectively, or not, as the case may be.

This is what we might call “Negative Stress”.

We each have a different level of tolerance to Stress depending on many factors, including our personality type, childhood experiences and how well developed our Cognition and Internal Control is. It is well known that Stress can be a trigger for Depression and Depressive Disorders and continual exposure to Stress can affect your Physical as well as Mental Health.

Some of the more common Stress Triggers are:

• Loss and Bereavement
• Divorce or Separation
• Long-term illnesses
• Disabilities
• Moving Home
• Marriage
• Starting a new job
• Being promoted into more responsibility
• Money Problems

The Symptoms of Stress are also well documented and can include:

• Becoming Irritated Easily
• Being worried about being criticized
• Biting your Nails
• Sleeping Problems
• Excessive Drinking
• Excessive Smoking
• Difficulty concentrating

Every person has their own “Individual Stress Limit” and of course this limit depends on many different factors inherent in the person but as long as we don’t operate too near our own limit, then we are generally able to deal with the day to day Stress that we are exposed to.

If however, we spend most of our time at the limit of our Stress, then it doesn’t take much additional Stress to “send us over the edge” to a point where we feel that we can’t cope any more and then may feel out of control or overloaded.

At this point Stress feels intolerable.

What people generally don’t appreciate is that our “Individual Stress Limit” is in fact determined by our cognition or the way that we think or view any particular situation.

This is known as “Perspective”.

Sometimes simply modifying this “Perspective” can have a profound effect on our ability to deal with Stress factors.