When is the Right Time to Work With a Stress Management Coach?
We’ve all been there. You are running a hundred miles an hour every day and never seem to catch up. You constantly feel overwhelmed and anxious. You’re not sleeping well, your work performance is declining and your relationships are suffering. We’ve all been told we need to “manage” our stress. But how does one go about doing that? To put it simply, when is too much stress a significant problem to be addressed? If any of these things sound like you, you may benefit from working with a Stress Management Coach.
Defining a Stress Management Coach
Enter the Stress Management Coach into the picture. So what exactly is a Stress Management Coach? They are someone who helps individuals understand the nature of stress, identifies their triggers and stress responses, placing actionable plans to shift people’s lifestyle and eventually their outlook on life. We saw this type of coaching grow out of psychology, health coaching and occupational wellness. It has become more popular as both companies and individuals have sought out professionals who can help them to manage their stress. It has also grown in popularity as more businesses are working towards giving better tools to their employees who are overwhelmed with the work-life balance. The approach tends to be similar to that of a holistic health coach.
4 Signs It’s Time to Work With a Stress Management Coach
Feeling overwhelmed
Do you feel overwhelmed with prioritizing your health? We can all feel that way at times. But if yours is getting in the way of starting a workout or nutrition program and you are struggling with how to prioritize, this could be a way for you to have a guide to help sort of where to begin. It can also be a way to take a larger view of what is making you feel overwhelmed so that you can get in the right mindset to add something new to your schedule.
Experiencing chronic irritability
when you are constantly not feeling like you or finding yourself lashing out at friends or family, you may be experiencing chronic irritability. This not only is not good for our health, it can cloud our creative mind and leave us feeling like we don’t know how to manage day to day things. Long-term effects of this can lead to health issues such as sleep deprivation, low blood sugar, depression and other mental health conditions.
Suffering from constant sickness and physical symptoms
I remember learning about the sympathetic nervous system in school. This controls your “fight or flight” response. What many people don’t know is that we have had this response for thousands of years so that we could get away from wild animals or away from immediate danger. Fast forward to the present time, your body cannot differentiate between physical and emotional stress. Which is why sometimes we feel exhausted after a funeral the same way our body is tired after a long workout. When our body is constantly suffering from sickness it could be related to how we manage our stress. Reducing stress not only allows our bodies to reset, it can help us learn better tools at managing stress so that we aren’t constantly causing stress responses within the body.
Feeling burnt out
We all have our little tricks of reducing our burnout. You spend a little more time on yourself, such as going on vacation or spending some extra time catching up on rest during the weekend. Yet lately when you do these things you are still feeling like you can’t “reset”. It could be that your old techniques of reducing stress are simply not working anymore and you may need to explore how to better manage your burnout.
In What Ways Can a Stress Management Coach Help Me?
A stress management coach is there to help guide the process towards a healthier you. When you meet with them, the journey begins with exploring what the person struggles with and who they want to be. That coach allows the space and opportunity to explore routes for the person to begin working on reducing stress in their lives. Different tools that coaches may use include creating opportunities for self-care, discussing ways to reduce stress in daily life, sharing strategies to increase sleep and water intake, and offering advice and programs to help that person begin adding movement into their daily routine. The goal setting is centered around habit changes that help to not only alleviate the stress but also improve your overall health.
How Do You Know You’ve Found the Right Coach?
Finding the right coach is a two-way street. The person does need to be open to exploring tough subjects and how to move forward. And the coach needs to have the tools and empathy to support that client in the best way possible. It needs to be a collaborative relationship. It should not just be the coach telling the person what to do. And on the client side, they do need to be ready to put in the work. Most importantly, being on the same page and building trust is crucial to ensure the path forward is on mutual ground.
Invest in Your Well-being: Work with a Stress Management Coach
If you are ready to explore different ways of managing your stress, or simply are interested in learning how to better manage your stress, this could be a new route for you. Instead of just trying to numb the problem, this could be a way to get to the root of some of your stress to make lasting changes. Click here to set up a call and we can discuss what working together could look like.
