Therapy is a wonderfully useful tool that can teach you to improve your quality of life through managing stress. Seeking out therapy with a licensed and experienced therapist can help you make real, effective changes right away. Therapists can teach you adaptive strategies that can be implemented immediately to find relief from stress.
Unmanaged stress can have a profound impact on your life by causing poor health behaviors, negatively impacting your relationships or creating problems at work. Further problems can develop with the use of maladaptive coping strategies to manage these symptoms of stress through substance abuse, self-injurious behaviors and with the development of greater mental health symptoms.
Seeking an experienced and effective provider is the first step in getting your stress under control. With a therapist you can begin to develop a treatment plan to address your stress. This can look different for everyone but may involve a number of factors including targeting the source of stress, developing coping skills and stress management techniques, developing healthy thinking patterns and finding solutions to problems and difficulties in your life.
Therapists are uniquely qualified in exploring with you how your stress impacts your life and the lives of those around you. Having an unbiased perspective, evaluating what is occurring in your life can set you on a path to make real changes that can be sustained. Developing awareness of one's own thoughts and feelings and then challenging and replacing any negative or unhealthy thoughts can decrease rumination and improve your outlook and overall functioning.
Stress Management Techniques
Specific stress management techniques like meditation, mindfulness, learning to replenish psychological, physical or emotional supplies, developing other coping skills like journaling, exercise or other grounding activities can all be taught within therapy sessions. Your therapist will be able to teach you and then practice with you in counseling sessions, the necessary skills to lower your stress levels. Engaging in therapist led activities can lower stress levels, improve your quality of life and assist you in making necessary long term changes to prevent a recurrence of these significant stress symptoms and problems.
There is no barrier as to who can participate in counseling sessions. Therapy is for all ages, genders or backgrounds. Anyone can learn needed skills to lower their stress levels and gain the type of stress-free functioning they need. Some need therapy for only brief periods of time to address a specific stressor or crisis while others appreciate utilizing the on-going, regular support from one who is not a family member or friend. Regardless of where you are now in your ability to cope with stress, therapy can help you, don't hesitate to reach out for support today.