I count myself fortunate to be in a profession in which I get to see positive shifts in peoples lives. Seeing people overcoming the negative effects of stress is one of them.
Being able to identify stress and how it is showing up in your life is the first step to reducing its negative effects.
It is worth mentioning here at the outset that stress in itself is not unnatural. It is there to signal a need to adapt. It becomes problematic when the signals are prolonged and not responded to.
There are many reasons for this, some internal, some external. Either way, a shift of some sort needs to occur.
In this way stress is not unlike a poison – in so far that it is not the substance itself that will kill you but the dose.
Recognising that you are under stress is the first step.
For those who know they are in a stressful situation – extreme or otherwise – this first step is easy. You know the symptoms because you feel them – viscerally. At the extreme end this can show up emotionally. Fear, panic attacks, high anxiety, all are sadly common. Physical manifestations such as heart palpitations, high blood pressure, and brain fog are also not uncommon traits.
If left untreated these states rarely end well.
For others – those suffering from a more moderate forms of stress – the signals of their condition might be far more subtle. The signals may even be considered as part of normal life because they have been so consistent over a number of years that the subject may have normalised them.
In some cases, such as CPTSD (complex post traumatic stress disorder – a condition where an individual is still anticipating the negative effects of a past traumatic event) people can live in a perpetual state of anxiety, highly vigilant to even the slightest shifts in their environment and think that that is just how life is.
Those dealing with such states can use all number of coping mechanisms to deal with it, but until they get to the root of it, then all attempts at care or self care will be palliative and not an actual cure.
To cure it you must get to the root.
And to get to the root you must first know how and what you actually feel. This is the first step. In order to reduce the harmful effects of stress you must first recognise its effects, both emotional and physical.
NEXT – Part Two: Know the Cause.
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