Stress can negatively affect you without you realising it. The effects of stress can be mental, emotional and physical. Many people suffer from the effects of stress in their daily lives without doing anything to cope with or change it.
Roughly 2/3rd’s of Doctors visits are due to stress-related symptoms with the most searched for words on Google being ‘stress’ and ‘depression’. The modern lifestyle creates daily routines and situations that foster feelings of stress, anxiety and depression. At Integrative Coaching, most of our inquiries are stress-related, and we recommend that clients join us for stress management coaching sessions to learn how to deal with stress.
What is Stress?
Stress is our normal psychophysiological response to a perceived threat, commonly known as the body’s fight-or-flight response — our survival instinct.
The stress response is the body’s natural way of protecting you. It can save your life. It is a good thing when we are in physical danger. The problems with stress begin when we feel stressed about non-life-threatening situations. We need to differentiate between “good” stress and “bad” stress. The good stress, called EU stress, keeps us going. Without it, we might never get off the couch! There are many causes of stress.
Some major external stressor’s include:
- Death of a spouse
- Divorce
- Marriage separation
- Jail term
- Death of a close relative
- Injury or illness
- Getting married
- Losing your job
- Marriage reconciliation
- Retirement
- Moving
- Building a house
How Does Stress Affect Your Health?
Many people feel some level of stress, and they do not believe it affects their body negatively. Evidence shows that stress is a leading contributor to heart disease and cancer, the leading causes of death. Listed below are a few of the chronic effects of stress:
- Headaches, back pain, chronic fatigue and digestive problems.
- Affects immune system, making it harder to fight off infection.
- Increases risk of strokes and heart attacks.
- Triggers addictive behaviour like smoking, alcoholism, drug abuse, overeating. These can lead to death or disability.
- Leaves you vulnerable to Anxiety and Depression.
- Causes infertility.
- Speeds up the ageing process.
- Cause several medical conditions, including obesity, autoimmune diseases, skin conditions and sleep disturbances.
What is Anxiety?
Anxiety is a message from the unconscious mind. It is a form of stress, usually about a specific event in the future. It may be about so many events that one could even feel a general sense of anxiety.
Anxiety can be debilitating and paralyzing, and constant anxiety can often lead to depression. Learning how to engage with your emotions, understand their message and become friends with this part of your psyche, will change the way you deal with stress and anxiety. It will change your life forever.
What is Depression?
I used to suffer from depression for over 15 years, and today my life is radically different. I used to wonder about things like, “Am I good enough?”, “Why is this happening me?”, “Is this all there is to life?”, “What is the purpose of life?” The list goes on. Many of you may have asked similar questions. The more I learned about how my mind works, the more I realized I had to power to control my state of being. Once you begin to take control over how you engage with yourself, life becomes exhilarating. You become inspired to live the life you dream about.
Common Signs of Depression
- Persistent sadness, anxiety, or “empty” moods, moodiness.
- Loss of interest or pleasure in hobbies, including sex.
- Feelings of hopelessness and pessimism.
- Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, helplessness, self-hatred, self-loathing.
- Insomnia, early-morning awakening, or oversleeping.
- Appetite and/or weight loss or overeating and weight gain.
- Decreased energy, fatigue and feeling run down.
- Increased use of alcohol and drugs.
- Thoughts of death or suicide, suicide attempts.
- Restlessness, irritability, hostility.
- Difficulty concentrating, remembering, making decisions.
- Persistent physical symptoms that do not respond to treatment, such as headaches, digestive disorders, and chronic pain.
Depression is experienced differently by different people. This list is certainly not comprehensive. The World Health Organization claims that, by the year 2030, depression will be the leading cause of disability.
Those feelings of negative stress and depression can be caused by past negative emotional factors as well as everyday life factors which need to be dealt with to conquer these feelings. Through stress management coaching sessions, you will learn about yourself, how to cope with those overwhelming feelings. We seek to find the root cause of your stress or depression and resolving these issues through gaining insight, knowledge and wisdom.
The Integrative Method of coaching draws from wisdom traditions, depth psychology, meditation and many other coaching and psychological models, integrating them into our approach. Through doing this, we allow our clients to achieve their goals in the most effective manner.
Let me help you!
If you feel stressed or anxious, it is possibly affecting your mental and physical health. When we get stressed, our breathing becomes faster and shallower. When we do this a lot, it causes more stress and disease in the body and mind. Being able to control your breathing consciously can help reduce stress and its negative effects on the body. It will keep you healthier, both mentally and physically.
One option is to learn how to engage the Relaxation Response. This is easily assisted with the aid of some biofeedback devices. Contact me if you would like to learn how to eradicate your stress using my Stress Management Process and Interventions.
Depression and “Negative” Emotions
We all have events in our lives that cause us to experience uncomfortable emotions when we recall the memory. These emotions need to be processed. Your unconscious mind represses those emotions and even memories until it determines that you are ready to process them. Often we think we have dealt with our past; all we have done is buried it deep inside. This has a huge impact on our mental, emotional and physical health.
It takes energy to repress memories and emotions and keep them locked away; that is energy that could be used for much more creative things. We do not realize that we have not processed these emotions sometimes. It usually hits us when our life seems to be moving smoothly or when we go on vacation, then WHAM! Your unconscious mind presents you with some emotional baggage to resolve. It usually creates more stress for you. It can be quite frustrating and confusing.
The way to succeed is to process these emotions and memories. I can help you do that through my coaching process.
Stress Management Coaching: What You Will Learn
- You will learn about yourself.
- You will discover why you should let go of your emotional baggage.
- You will realize how magnificent you are.
- You realize that you are capable of so much more.
- You have within you the unlimited potential of creation.
- You can tap into it using what I will share with you in my integrative coaching process.
- You can set yourself free.
What Can Be Done About Stress, Anxiety and Depression?
There are many ways to deal with stress, anxiety and depression. Some people turn to medication while others turn to alternative and natural therapies. Some people run away, and some people look for the root cause and deal with the issues. We will work on uncovering and resolving the root causes of your anxiety, depression or stress and use them to gain knowledge, insight and wisdom into your life.
Causes of Stress
The causes of stress depend, at least in part, on your perception of it. What causes stress for some people may not affect others. For example, going to work in the morning may make some people anxious because they worry about the traffic while other people may find the trip relaxing because it allows them time to enjoy listening to music on the drive.
Your perceptions are formed through filters in your unconscious mind — your values, beliefs, past experiences, language, culture and decisions. Situations and pressures that cause stress are known as stressors. We usually think of stressors as being negative, but they can also be positive like getting married or buying a house.
We will engage with both the internal and external aspects of your stress. The unconscious mind has a huge impact on how you experience every single moment, and over time it becomes conditioned with values and beliefs that often do not support our highest potential.
Interested in learning more?
My one-on-one integrative coaching process equips you to be the master of stress and your life. Together, I will show you how to release all your past unresolved emotions and gain insight and wisdom. I will teach you strategies on how to use the mind most creatively and help you focus on what you want. I will show you how to create and stay in a highly resourceful state of being and state of mind whenever you like.
The Integrative Approach is informed by:
- Jungian Analytical Psychology
- Transpersonal Psychology
- Meditation & Mindfulness
- Pranayama & Breathwork
- Positive Psychology
- Integral Theory
- Biofeedback & The Relaxation Response
- Flow Theory
- Hypnosis
- Psychotherapeutic Models
- Ancient Eastern Philosophies
- The Diamond Approach
- And many others
Integrative Coaching Stress Management
I have developed a unique process called integrative coaching, taking the best these many processes, methodologies, techniques and philosophies have to offer and integrating them into an approach of exploration, awareness and integration. In this way, I can assist you in achieving your goals in the most efficient manner. Together, we will create a program that works specifically for you and your needs.
Contact me if you want to learn how to release unresolved negative emotions, delete limiting beliefs, control your state of being and create a positive compelling future.
For more information or to book a session with Integrative Coaching, you can contact us on 021 418 5080 for more information. Remember, the first session is free.