Alcohol Abuse Advice

Putting the Brakes on Client Stress – Before it Spirals Out of Control

Imagine a client presenting with multiple symptoms, some of which appear to resist all kinds of treatment. Or imagine a practitioner successfully treating symptom after symptom only to have the client return later, to be faced with the manifestation of new symptoms. Sooner or later, either the practitioner or the patient must either resign themselves to failure, or ask, “What is going on? What is causing all of these problems?” In a great many cases, perhaps most of them, the answer (or part of the answer) to that question is Stress.
Why Stress is a Major Health Issue

Along with toxins, stress is now widely recognised as a major contributor to disease and illness. There exists a growing body of evidence relating stress to the boom over the last few decades in autoimmune diseases, especially in children. Cell biologist Bruce Lipton attributes over ninety-five percent of all disease to stress1. Yet most cases of stress still go undiagnosed or untreated.until they cause more obvious health or psychological problems.

Stress is often blamed for beauty issues, anything from going gray, increased acne, to getting tension- inducing wrinkles. In fact, most beauty products are useless if one is emotionally distressed or physically stressed. Stresses disturb the body homeostasis that results in hormonal malfunctioning, impairment of body immunological functions and slows down the skin and body rejuvenation. Stress slows down the process of cell renewal, destroys collagen fibers in the skin, breaks down its elastin and increases the production of sebum oils in oily skin people and dehydrate dry skin. There is no doubt, stress can make you more wrinkled, gray early, age faster and increase acne.

The first step to changing this scenario is to recognise that stress does negatively impact on the health of the body. The body may quickly recover from the temporary effects of short term stress, but if the stress is prolonged or severe, the body develops many responses that ultimately diminish its capacity to recover and restore proper function. These responses include increased cardiovascular activity, which can cause hypertension; poor digestive function, which can lead to a plethora of digestive problems including leaky gut, diverticulitis, irritable bowel syndrome and ulceration; and suppression of reproductive function, which can cause reduced libido, impotence and menstrual problem.
The body’s immune system is also affected, its function sometimes reduced by half within minutes of the stress experiencei. Emotional trauma or stress also causes the release of certain hormones, including endogenous opiates and corticosteroids. These hormones literally numb the body’s cells, including the white blood cells. If the stress becomes chronic, the white blood cells are unable to protect the body from infectious agents and cancer cells.2
Research shows that continued stress and trauma are associated with many diseases or conditions, including allergies and asthma, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, gastrointestinal disorders, lupus and other autoimmune diseases. Stress can also worsen existing chronic health problems such as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, asthma, eczema, allergies and diabetes, and result in more severe or frequent allergic reactions, headaches or migraines and increased susceptibility to infections.
Stress-induced neural overstimulation, chemical imbalances and inflammation can also cause neuron death, memory loss and impaired cognitive function. Professor Joseph LeDoux of the Centre for Neural Science at New York University explains that when a person experiences stress, the adrenal gland secretes a steroid hormone that binds to the hippocampus and other areas of the brain. While the hippocampus sends out messages to reduce the flow of stress hormones, another part of the brain, the amygdala, is sending out ‘release’ messages. If the stress persists, the hippocampus can become overtaxed and unable to balance the action of the amygdala or carry out its other functions, including its role in memory. This might explain why stress often results in memory failure.4
Her own extensive research into the body’s hormonal and chemical responses to stress led Dr Candace Pert to surmise that stress-related disease is due to an “informational overload, a condition in which the mind-body network is so taxed…that it has become bogged down and cannot flow freely, sometimes even working against itself” 5 According to recent studies by several American universities, stress can even change the change the shape of the brain and brain cells, causing brain cells to warp. This has serious implications for children and teenagers whose brains are still developing. Researchers suggest that the changes may be long-lasting and may reduce the person’s ability to manage their emotions.

How can You Recognise Signs of Distress?
With this in mind, it behoves the therapist to be vigilant in recognising early signs of stress and addressing it before it causes further damage to the client’s health and beauty. This is not always easy as people often fail to recognise that they are being affected by stress, and may therefore dismiss your efforts to help. Also, different people handle stress differently, depending on their perceptions and whether they or not they have developed helpful coping strategies.
So what the therapist must look for are signs that a client is having difficulty coping. This is especially important because many people are very reluctant to seek help with emotional problems, more so in some cultures than in others.
Some of the common signs of excess or chronic stress include poor sleep or sleeping too much, headaches, digestive problems, fatigue, muscle tension, teeth clenching (often indicated by pain in the neck or jaw), and changed eating habits (overeating or loss of appetite). Others include atypical (for that person) irritability, mood swings, lethargy, loss of interest in hobbies or favourite activities, and mood changes. A person in distress can also become more anxious, fearful, withdrawn, or aggressive.

Unhealthy or self-destructive behaviours are generally strong indicators of distress, and in some cases, of psychological problems. These can include excessive use of drugs, alcohol, cigarettes; self-harming behaviours, or lack of personal hygiene or self-care. People who manifest these kinds of behaviour are often caught up in a vicious cycle of escalating stress and unhealthy lifestyles that can lead to more and more severe stress and stress symptoms. Visit Stress Management Website to read more usefull information.

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