Everyone, at some time, experiences stress due to events that occur in our lives. Sometimes stress can motivate the actions necessary for us to change or to improve the situation. However, stress and the anxiety that often follows, can overwhelm one’s ability to cope and have the lack of proper stress management negatively impact our lives.

When we feel threatened by circumstances at home, work or personal fears, our bodies are designed to give us a chance to either ‘fight’ or ‘flee’. The problem with much of our responses is to find it difficult to let go of those intense feelings and stress becomes an issue for quality of life. During long periods of distress, our bodies can be affected physically. Difficulty is present in sleep disruption, cognitive abilities and even illness. Learning how to manage stress is in part understanding how to control our physical reactions to stress and see that the perceptions about what is a threat can be changed.

In therapy, individuals learn techniques that counter the sensations of stress and give one a sense of control over the negative responses to stress. Also, the patterns of behavior and perception can be explored to show that there may be other solutions to presenting problems and that reactions can be minimized by seeing the ability anyone has to create change in their lives.
While the possibility of overwhelming stress can never be removed from our lives, the capacity to manage and competently understand and respond to stressors is within the reach of individuals. It’s that perspective that we at Dittmar Counseling believe for our clients and try to provide for those who have struggled with stress management.