Stress affects all of us from time to time, especially around the new year period, but stress can feel overwhelming if it has been ongoing, or you start to experience physical symptoms as a result of stress.
The therapists at Newcastle Psychologist & Counselling offer a range of therapies that can help you overcome and manage stress, with approaches from Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT), Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Mindfulness, Solution-Focused therapy and a range of others to help you deal with your difficulties.
Below are some techniques that can help if you find yourself experiencing acute stress.
Make Time for Exercise
Exercise is so useful for tackling feelings of stress as it helps to provide an endorphin boost – endorphins are often referred to as a ‘feel-good’ chemical.
Exercise also helps lower the excess production of cortisol that occurs with stress, which puts your body into fight or flight mode. By keeping regular exercise on your 2022 to-do list, you are helping yourself to relax both physically and mentally.
The improvement in mood will help you to feel more focused on your goals, get you moving, and help disengage from the racing thoughts that are often contributing to feelings of stress.
Meditate
Meditation is often shown to relieve stress, not just in the moment, but also in the longer term.
Often, people experiencing chronic stress might not realise they are storing tension in their body, but over time this can cause muscular pains and physical symptoms that are actually stress-based, whether through holding bad posture, overly tense muscles at rest, or being constantly in “fight or flight”.
Our Specialist Mindfulness Meditation Practitioner, Michael Atkinson, often works with people one-to-one to help develop a personalised program with customised (non-religious) meditations and mindfulness guidance to help you to feel less stressed.
The more you practice meditation, the more you improve your emotional wellbeing.
Practice Acceptance
If you are someone with perfectionistic tendencies, or a high drive towards success, or you have a lot of responsibility, accepting difficult situations and events beyond your control can be difficult.
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an effective therapy offered by our experienced psychologists in Newcastle (and is also available through online therapy) where helpful, that can help you to manage stressful thoughts and feelings to lessen their effect in the future.
Though acceptance can be difficult, it is not the same as “giving in”. Instead, ACT helps you develop skills to disengage from the critical or perfectionistic thoughts that might drive your stress, and help you live a life more in line with what’s important to you.
Contact Us Today
If you would like to see how counselling for stress, Newcastle-based or online, can benefit you, please contact us by filling in the box below or call us on 07966 645 198.
Best wishes,
Dr Stuart Sadler
Lead Clinical Psychologist
