ARE YOU STRESSING OUT?

Let’s say you’ve just been diagnosed with HIV, Cancer or another serious disease, lost your job or found out that you’re about to be evicted from your home. These example situations are perfectly normal situations to feel stressed about. Let’s say however that you would ordinarily resort to some sort of road rage attack if you were cut off in traffic or began hyperventilating with anxiety if you made a mistake at work. These situations don’t require you to stress. So even though there’s a bunch of ways we can cope with or deal with stress that’s not really what we want to cover.

What we do cover is the chronic stress that people live with, not because something particularly bad has happened or been going on, but instead because they tend to become too easily triggered by what is fair to describe as ‘the little things’. What I’m talking about is chronic stress and ‘stressed out’ people. The type of stress that never seems to come and go, that particular kind of stress that seems to affect us constantly.

This type of stress can have hugely negative effects on us and can lead to anxiety, depression and even suicide. Stress is a natural, normal thing but if we do not learn how to cope with it and reduce the pressure that stress cause we will end up living with those negative effects long term, so it becomes increasingly more important to learn how to deal with stress. If you are struggling with the stress associated with a particular situation 'acute' or perhaps longer term stress 'chronic' this book is for you.