A
Brief Desription of Stress
Stress can be defined as the actual experience we have
as the result of being out of control of any given situation. Generally
people consider stress as a modern-day phenomenon caused by the demands of
today�s society. In some respects this is true but only inasmuch as modern
society does not allow us to get �it� out of our systems. If we were to
go back in time to a land where there is constant threat from predators we
might discover just how important stress reactions are. When any animal
finds itself under threat it requires a physiological response that prepares
the body to do one of two things: fight and destroy the threat or, run away
and escape from it. Without such a mechanism to prepare itself for such
action it would never have survived to pass on those same genes, which today
are responsible for the nervous system that prepares the body for
�fight� or �flight.�
In the correct proportion stress is positive and also
necessary for achieving and performing to our maximum potential. However,
like anything else in life, excess is damaging and may pile up upon us
almost unobtrusively. It becomes a burden when we are unable to express it
either through physical action or emotional expression or, even more
importantly, not recognising its existence. Everyone, without exception, has
a limit to the amount of stress they can effectively cope with. Stressors,
that is, those things in our lives that create the stress, come in many
forms and varieties. Some are more stressful than others and what is
stressful for one individual may be less so for another. Even change can be
stressful. Change requires the individual to adapt in some way to his or her
world which itself can be a stress factor. Paradoxically lack of change can
also be a stressor. The mind and the body require a healthy level of stress.
Signs and symptoms of stress are many. Ranging from extreme conditions such
as cardiac failure - even cancer is said by some to be correlated with
stress and personality factors - through a range of other symptoms such as
depression; anxiety; addictions; aggressiveness; colitis; flatulence; memory
failure, etc. There are also overt behaviours such as clenched fists; tensed
muscles; blinking frequently; talking incessantly, etc. These can be linked
to feeling bad-tempered or easily reduced to tears and hearing statements
such as: �that�s not like me to ----!� A healthy approach to managing,
or learning to handle stress, is to recognise that it not �something out
there� so to speak, but more to do with how you perceive that
�something� out there.
How you perceive it will determine whether it becomes a stressor or a
situation to be resolved. One individual will perceive a given experience as
perhaps challenging whilst another individual will perceive the experience
as one that exceeds his or her coping ability
In addition to hypnosis
it would be very useful to have a greater understanding of how your 'style' of
thinking about certain situations can actually be an instegator of your panic
attacks. You, I beleive, benifit from reading the follwing article: CBT
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