For many, workplace stress can arise from job uncertainty, poor job performance feedback or a lack of authority to make decisions. Everyday life stressors can include financial difficulties, divorce, lack of work/life balance, bereavement and moving house. For either type of stress, the resulting symptoms might include:

• Increased irritability
• Weight gain or weight loss
• Inability of concentrate
• Heightened sensitivity to criticism
• Signs of tension, such as nail-biting
• Difficulty getting to sleep and early morning waking
• Drinking and smoking more
• Indigestion
• Loss of concentration

Modifying or changing the ideas and beliefs that largely create our emotional and behavioural reactions to stress, is a vital key to stress management. Many GPs recommend Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) as a counselling approach to help patients suffering with signs of stress and other problems such as depression, anxiety, panic and phobias.

The essence of CBT is that ‘HOW WE THINK ABOUT EVENTS CAN HAVE A POWERFUL INFLUENCE ON HOW WE FEEL ABOUT THEM’ - essentially changing your thoughts can alter your feelings and reduce stress related symptoms.

Julie Edge the Centre Manager says ‘Problems don’t lie in external events but in our reactions to them. Once you stop blaming external pressures for the stress you are suffering, you start to take control and responsibility for how you feel. CBT challenges negative thoughts and encourages more realistic positive ways of thinking it also supports behavioural change to create more enjoyable ways of living.’