We often think of stress as a bad thing but a healthy amount of stress is great for helping us become better, learn more, to thrive even.

This kind of stress is known as eustress. 

The kind of stress that is less healthy – that can be positively unhealthy if it becomes chronic – is known as distress.

It’s what so often happens in modern life. We live sophisticated lives with our devices and 24/7 living but our bodies and brains simply weren’t designed to cope with so much excitement and stress. 

Our ancient ancestors lived mostly peaceful existences and their stress responses would be triggered occasionally by sabre toothed tigers and similar actual threats to life and limb.

Physiologically, we might react in the same way to the thought of an email or a conversation at work. 

When we don’t allow ourselves enough downtime and rest, our nervous system gets unbalanced.

We start producing stress hormones even without having stressful thoughts let alone actually being in the grave danger our limbic brains think we’re in. 

This can result in unpleasant symptoms like feeling like crying, snapping at people, outbursts of anger, self-harming behaviours and insomnia.

I always know when I need to up my  own self-care because little irritants start feeling bigger than they are.

Being told or even telling ourselves to ‘calm down’ or ‘relax’ can have the opposite effect.

Fortunately, there are many things we can do to help ourselves and I love sharing these tools with my clients and students. 

All my work is collaborative so the choice about the direction we take and tools you learn is entirely up to you.

The fact that you’re even reading this, looking for support and knowing you can improve things is a big step.

I use a range of tools to help you ease your stresses (click HERE) depending on what you want support with and what appeals most.

You can read more about my way of working and how I’ve helped people HERE