Manchester Psychotherapy

Counselling in Manchester

Tips On Dealing With Anxiety

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www.studio10salonsuites.comtips on dealing with anxietyTomorrow never comes, yet we wait until tomorrow for happiness, fulfillment, intimacy and closeness.  How many times have you said something like “when my anxiety reduces a bit I’ll make more effort with my partner” or “when I feel less stressed I’ll stop smoking/drinking/shouting” (insert as appropriate)?  But tomorrow never comes.  The problem with “when” statements is that they usually tie up your goal so tightly that you never reach it, a bit like one of those big balls of sticky tape that are impossible to unwrap.

The truth is that you can have feelings and take action that has value in your life and moves you closer to your goal.  You can feel anxious and make effort with your partner and you can feel stressed and live a cigarette free life.

Now here’s the rub, this may well generate anxious thoughts for you (I guess you could see that one coming!).  Anxious thoughts are OK if we recognise them for what they are, just thoughts.  They are not truths and they are not us.  Thoughts tend to come and go.  They are a bit like the annoying pigeons that hang out around my flat.  I can watch them come and go and mostly they don’t bother me.  Sometimes they will try to climb into my windows and sometimes they wake me up at 5am making an almighty dinn, but they are essentially harmless.  I can choose to let them bother me, shake my fists when they stare at me through the windows, or I can simply acknowledge their existence and carry on with whatever I’m doing.  The defusion technique I previously blogged about is a great way to do this distancing with your thoughts (read that post here).  The benefit of this way of living is that you get to do things that move you towards your goal and learn to make room for your feelings.  After you’ve done this a few times you get better at it.  As you get better at it you start to feel more contented with life and need to do it less.  It’s kind of like accepting your anxiety, stress, sadness or anger allows it to move somehow and slowly ebb away.

So this is a call to action.  Decide what you want out of life and plan how you are going to get it.  Then look at all of the anxious, scary, angry or downright irrational thoughts your mind is churning up, thank your mind for trying to protect you, and get stuck in with achieving them!

I help people who suffer from anxiety in my counselling practice in Manchester.  Ring 07966 390857 for an appointment.

Work Place Stress And The Difference Between Men And Women

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work place stressStressed at work?

A report by Chartered Counselling Psychologist, Dr Kevin Wright which was presented at the 17th Annual BACP Research Conference in Liverpool, on 6-7 May 2011 has suggested that men and women react to work place stress in different ways. This does not surprise me at all. It’s interesting to me how men and women differ in their approach to life and their response to therapy.

Wright has found that men have more stress than women and deal with it very differently. Men tend to take less days off but turn up to work when they are not well enough to do their jobs and put in a poor effort as a result.

How does the report say men and women cope with stress? Again, no big surpises. Men tend to either go seek help and deal with it (by finding a counsellor for example) or do nothing at all and attempt to deal with their negative feelings by drinking and crossing their fingers that things will get better. Women are more likely to deal with the stress by shouting at their partner or work colleagues or by becoming depressed. Women are better at getting help from friends and family than men, who tend not to talk to people close to them.

So what can we learn from this report? Well, many of the findings are not surprising. That women are less stressed than men may also be linked to the finding that part time staff are less stressed than full time staff and more women are part time. There must be a link between women sharing their problems with their friends and family and men bottling it all up.
Here are some suggestions for both sexes that I am making from information in the report and from my experience as a therapist:

Men:

  • Feel your feelings. Allow yourself to get in touch with your feelings and express them.
  • Talk to your nearest and dearest about how you feel.
  • Take time off work if you need it – no point in “being strong” and paying the price later by having a breakdown or being off for long periods of time. Take a day off, look after yourself and go back to work when you feel able to be productive.
  • If you feel yourself struggling, get help. The answer will not be found in the bottom of a pint glass. Counsellors and therapists are trained to help you so use them just as you would a doctor if you had broken your leg.

 

Women:

  • Explain to your partner what you are feeling and talk things through rather than shouting.
  • Seek professional help. Friends are a great source of support and if you need further help don’t feel bad about getting support from a therapist or counsellor. Counsellors are trained to help and take a very different approach to friends. You may find this alternative source of support very useful.
  • Look after your man – he is likely to suffer from stress more severely than you!

These are just a few suggestions and I am very interested in hearing what you have to say about how you deal with stress and your experiences with stress. Just write your ideas in the box below.

To read the full article check out: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/224521.php

Image: koratmember / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Keep Calm And Carry On

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keep calm and carry onI was seriously tempted not to write a post today. It would be the first time for a year that I would have missed publishing a post at the weekend. I thought about ditching the post because I have a tonne of other stuff to do and many other stresses to contend with. I thought “who would actually notice if I just skipped one week?” The answer I came back with was – ME. I would notice! I have set myself a challenge to write one post a week and I am determined to keep it up, so read on for a bit of an explanation!

There are various work related stresses that have arisen over the past couple of weeks. I guess as I have become more successful then there have been more demands on my time and an increase in tasks that are difficult to put off or avoid completely. Coupled with that, a serious family illness in my family has really knocked me for six and left me confused and scared about the future. I am now slowly getting my head around this. So I thought it was about time I took some of my own advice. What would I say to a client who was in my situation? Probably the following;

  • Feel your feelings, do not bottle them up. Cry if you want to cry and feel the sadness, it’s healthy.
  • Talk about things to your loved ones and your friends. A problem shared is a problem halved.
  • Go easy on yourself. Give yourself time to indulge and look after that Child that is within us all.
  • Realise that feelings take time to work themselves through. There are no quick fixes.
  • Get out and do things when you feel you are really struggling.
  • Exercise is a great way to pick yourself up. The natural endorphins help improve mood.

Ok, I admit that I haven’t done the exercise thing, but the rest of the list has been followed and I feel that I can manage and I will be OK.

The situation did get me thinking about how we British deal with stress and anxiety. That message “keep calm and carry on”, the stiff upper lip, is embedded into our culture and does serve a purpose at times. It has allowed me to get on with working and do what I have to do despite my sad feelings. I also believe, however, that it needs to be balanced with permission to feel our feelings when the space and time is right. This may be at home or in the company of supportive friends or your counsellor.

As for the anxious feelings, well I was very impressed with Russell Brand’s response when Piers Morgan asked him whether he will make mistakes in the future (as he seems to have the ability to do in his own inimitable way). Brand’s reply was “I don’t have to worry about that right now, all I have to deal with is you sitting in front of me”.

“The past is history, the future a mystery, but today is a gift. That’s why it’s called “the present”” (Kung Fu Panda)

Image: Suat Eman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net