Stress when life's challenges demand a response from us.
We can feel a sense of pressure caused by stress.
It could be from a family illness, a work deadline, conflict with another person or any other difficulty
we have to face.
As with an anxiety, a certain amount of stress is helpful.
Stress provokes a full body response as stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline flowed our system
and set off a wide range of reactions.
Acute stress activates the sympathetic nervous system, preparing our bodies to respond to a threat
by fighting, fleeing or sometimes freezing.
Our bodies and minds are well equipped to handle beef spikes in stress.
However, when the stressors are chronic, like a traffic feel, two hour commute, five days a week,
abusive work environment or a protracted divorce, our coping resources get depleted.
We may start to get sick more often, become depressed or other mental and physical signs of being overwhelmed.
CBT offers tools for calming the nervous system, like specific breathing techniques that dial down
or fight or flight system.
We can also address ways of thinking that amplify stress, such as seeing challenges at work as opportunities
to fail rather than to succeed.
CBT can encourage us to take our self care more seriously as well to increase our ability to process
frequent stress.
Under as with an anxiety and stress, anger can be very useful, anger energizes us to right or wrong,
like dealing with injustice.
Our anger becomes a problem when we express it so much that it starts to damage our health and our relationships.
Oftentimes, our anger arises from beliefs that may or may not be true.
CBT offers ways to fix thoughts that drive excessive anger.
It can also help find ways to structure your life to reduce anger like starting your morning commute
15 minutes earlier so you're less stressed and impatient behind the wheel.
CBT can also help us find ways to express anger constructively rather than destructively.