Lloydspharmacy.com Health - Dealing with stress

Written by Christine Webber, psychotherapist and lifecoach and Dr David Delvin, GP and counsellor

Learn to control stress so it doesn't control you.

During the recession of 2008-09, it was claimed that the last century has been the most stressful mankind has encountered. This has to be an exaggeration! For instance, we don’t have the black death to cope with. However, life today is profoundly affected by economic problems, unemployment, terrorism, crime and marriage break-ups. And for many people, work and commuting are very stressful. So almost inevitably, you are bound to be exposed to a certain amount of stress at times.

Not all stress is bad. Scientists now believe that a moderate amount of stress helps you prepare for the challenges you’ll encounter during the day.

In 2005 a Danish research group reported in the British Medical Journal that women who were under a certain amount of daily stress were less likely to get breast cancer.

But it is important to learn to control stress so it doesn't control you.

Spotting the signs of stress

Stress is a sign that we need to look more closely at our lives. Like pain, stress should also be viewed as a warning.

If you are extremely tense and anxious, you should try to establish why. It might be your job, your parents or your relationship. Whatever it is, the chances are your stressful feelings are telling you to make changes.

Learning how to manage stress will only do half of the job if you don't try to sort out its source. You'll be doing the mental equivalent of sticking a Band-Aid over a boil that is infected.

There is a limit to the amount of stress we can take. If we don't learn to control stress, we are liable to get a whole host of physical and mental problems - and sometimes even break down.

Symptoms of stress

Stress manifests itself in many different ways - there are literally hundreds of symptoms. If you feel stressed, you'll certainly have some of the following.

Dry mouth.
Clammy hands.
Racing heart.
Feeling 'tight', like an over-wound clock.
Constant tiredness.
Migraine.
Bowel problems.
Eating disorders.
Indigestion.
Frequent minor respiratory troubles.
Loss of libido.
Erectile dysfunction.
Skin complaints.
Dizziness.
Tearfulness.
Insomnia.

One of the more debilitating symptoms of stress are panic attacks, which can be really frightening, and take over your life if you don't learn how to deal with them. Panic attacks seem to becoming more common – chiefly affecting women, but also some men.

Some symptoms are more to do with our behaviour than our physical state, such as:

irritability
vagueness
an unkempt appearance
poor concentration
fidgeting
difficulty in making decisions.

Relieving stress the wrong way

Some of the things we do to relieve stress, like smoking and drinking, can be as bad for our health as the stress itself.

Tranquilisers

Several decades ago, a number of pharmaceutical companies developed pills called tranquillisers. They came to be known as 'mother's little helpers', and a vast number of patients were put on them.

By the late 70s, it was discovered that these medicines were not as safe as had been thought, and that millions of people were addicted to them. Breaking this addiction was as difficult for many patients as quitting heroin is for drug users.

Even now, many people are still getting addicted to tranquillisers. So we wouldn't recommend tranquilisers, even if you are very stressed.

Many GPs are now reluctant to prescribe tranquilisers, but even if your doctor does want to put you on them, you should never take them for more than two to four weeks.

Very occasionally, there may be a case for short-term use to get you over the worst days, say if your partner died suddenly.

So, if you’re not going to take tranquillisers, then what can you do about all these stressful feelings?

The stress-busting notebook

Medicines can dull your anxiety, but can't cure it. If you want to stop stress, you must learn how to manage stressful problems.

The first step is to keep a stress-busting notebook so you can identify what is going wrong.

Instructions

You will need a notebook that you can keep with you at all times to record your stressful moments.
Write down and rate each moment.
Give the least stressful times one asterisk, and the most stressful happenings five.

How it works

People who keep a stress-busting notebook often find the areas they had thought most stressful are not as bad as other areas that they had hardly considered a problem.

For example, you may think your job is the problem, but find it's your overloaded weekends that are the worst times. This means you can put in place steps such as staggering chores or using the Internet for supermarket shopping.

There is nearly always a solution once you have identified the problem.

Stress-busting timetable

There is something else you can do - it's the stress-busting timetable. Below is an example.

My timetable
Time	My plan	What actually happened
8am	.	.
9am	.	.
10am	.	.
11am	.	.
Noon	.	.
1pm	.	.
2pm	.	.
3pm	.	.
4pm	.	.
5pm	.	.
6pm	.	.
7pm	.	.
8pm	.	.
9pm	.	.
10pm	.	.
11pm	.	.
Midnight	.	.

Instructions

Each day, write what you think you are going to do in the 'My plan' column.
At the end of each day, fill in what actually happened under that column.
Compare the two columns.

How it works

This process will help you to assess where you are overcrowding your life and expecting too much of yourself - and where you are increasing your stress.

At the beginning, you'll probably find you have forgotten to allow any time for some things nor allocated sufficient time for others.

Try to draw up this daily timetable for at least a fortnight. This way, you'll be able to see for yourself where you are creating stress for yourself or where others are doing it for you.

Gradually you'll learn to plan appropriately, and when you do, you'll find that your life becomes more peaceful.