Stress Symptoms
When you are stressed, the body produces so-called 'fight or flight' hormones, which prepare your body when you feel threatened.
Adrenaline and noradrenaline cause your blood pressure to rise above its normal level, increasing your heart rate and perspiration levels. These chemicals can also reduce blood flow to the skin and affect digestion.
Cortisol, another 'fight or flight' chemical, releases fat and sugar into your system (but can also reduce the efficiency of your immune system).
These and many other changes caused by the 'fight or fight' reaction, make it easier for you to fight or run away from danger, which would have been productive a long time ago, but in the modern world it has very few actual benefits.
These 'anxiety' responses are very much less productive if you are stuck in an office or on a train for example. You cannot fight or run away, so the chemicals your body has produced to protect you, remain unused and active in your blood stream.
Over time, these chemicals and the changes they cause can lead to your body and mind becoming 'reset' at a new, heightened level of anxiety; and it is this change that causes all the physical manifestations of stress, which can cause enormous disruption and distress to the sufferer and all those around them.
For example, you may experience headaches, nausea and indigestion. You may breathe erratically, perspire more, experience palpitations, dizziness or suffer from a variety of aches and pains such as:
- Chest pains
- Difficulty breathing
- Constant tiredness
- Constipation or diarrhoea
- Cramps or muscle spasms
- Craving for food
- Dizziness
- Phobias
- Fainting spells
- Lack of appetite
- Fear of dying
- Nail biting
- Feeling sick
- Frequent crying
- Obsessions and obsessive behaviour
- Feeling dreamy or detached
- Nervous twitches or muscle spasms
- Pins and needles
- Restlessness
- Insomnia
- Sweating
This list is condensed; the symptoms you may experience can be far reaching and intense.
Emotional Changes
When you are stressed you may experience anxiety, fear, anger, frustration, distorted thoughts and depressive feelings. Combined, these symptoms may make you feel unwell, alone and desperate; you then worry that you have some serious physical conditions which no one has yet discovered, this causes even more stress and the cycle continues.
By definition, feeling anxious will cause the symptoms, which cause anxiety, which cause symptoms and so on. The thoughts associated with stress and anxiety are embellished thoughts based on 'what if' scenarios... the mind is creative by nature and it can quickly and convincingly produce many forms of 'what if thoughts' and the symptoms these anxious thought patterns naturally bring with them.
Behavioural Changes
When you are stressed you become withdrawn, indecisive or inflexible. If you are unable to sleep properly, you will be moody, less productive, intolerant and hard to handle. You may be irritable or tearful; you may experience changes in your sexual habits, and even if you were previously mild-mannered you may suddenly become verbally or physically aggressive. These are all natural reactions to stress and anxiety, but for those people who have to live or work with you, these can be very damaging indeed.
The Solution
The solution is a combined programme of practical stress reduction, anxiety elimination and supportive counselling from qualified and experienced specialists, when the sufferer needs it. This last point is vital. Conventional stress and anxiety support is provided either by inexperienced general practitioners or during sessions once or twice a week or month...
That's where we come in.
Our Stress Away Programme has been developed to make the recovery process fast, drug free and permanent. Best of all for employees, they can be back to work fast and this has the positive knock on effect in the workplace of creating a more productive, caring and happy place to be. Instead of receiving advice and support at weekly or monthly sessions, for just an hour or two, our support happens immediately to enable the sufferer to continue working or to talk them through a difficult patch on their road to recovery.
We care for, review and support each and every client individually and it is this which makes Stress Away unique and successful in curing over 96% of our complying clients.
The 'Knock-On' Effect
A happier workforce, less absenteeism, higher productivity, better manager/worker communications and relations, reduced risk of litigation (stress is now an injury in law), compliance with HSE guidelines, increased employee morale.
If you don't think that stress in the workplace affects your company, you are very lucky indeed. According to a report issued by Royal Sun Alliance over 70% of workers have experienced stress in the workplace and over 20% of Britons suffer illness due to stress.
Stress can manifest itself in many cunning and underhand ways, the employee who is absent due to migraines, irritable bowel, neck injury, general ill health, insomnia and many other superficial sounding complaints is costing you money, these complaints are typical of stress related illness... can you afford to ignore those statistics?
Contact Julie Farrington-Griffiths to find out how you can minimise the risk to your company.