- You frequently bring work home
- You feel there aren't enough hours in the day to do all the things you must do
- You feel tired even though you've had adequate sleep, or you are having sleep problems
- You find yourself overthinking problems when you’re meant to be relaxing
- You get irritated or angry easily, or you often have mood swings
- You are depending more and more on alcohol, caffeine, nicotine or drugs
- You have an increase in muscular aches and pains (neck, head, shoulders, lower back)
- You have little time for interests
With stress comes untold worry - about the future or over the past, about workload or work/life balance, about relationships. The list goes on and is often worsened by negative 'storytelling’.
“Don’t worry!” - advice we rarely take.
Worry has us randomly seeking solutions to the cause of our stress. It’s an unhelpful strategy that often resolves nothing and only leads to insomnia, tiredness and yet more worry, even anxiety.
The important thing to remember is that it’s not so much the event or action that causes stress. It’s the way we interpret it as something outside our control.
I can help you to understand the causes of your stress and how to respond. Certain techniques help you to replace your old responses with lasting resilience.
If you've answered yes to many (or all) of these, welcome to midlife!
Life issues like workload, interaction with others, family breakups, kids, teenagers or bereavement can cause us midlife women untold stress. These “normal” issues are debilitating so it makes sense to adopt coping strategies.
