The words stress and anxiety are used so commonly that it’s hard to tell exactly what they are. The word stress doesn’t actually mean a bad feeling, which is actually distress. Stress is anything that takes us out of our baseline physically or psychologically, which in many cases is healthy for us. An example of a healthy stressor is physical exercise.

Stress becomes a problem when it overwhelms our resources and takes us out of the present moment. There are many tools for managing stress while it’s happening. There are also effective therapy methods for reducing/avoiding stress to begin with. One of the goals of therapy is to make life changes that will shift away from distress.

Feeling stressed out is commonly associated with anxiety. So is worry. In therapy, we work on making distinctions between worry and planning and learn strategies for shifting away from worry. We also actively change the way we talk to ourselves about feeling stressed and anxious, which helps change how we think about our feelings and how we choose where to put our attention.

Sometimes feeling of stress and anxiety are rooted in deeper issues involving unresolved grief and trauma. In those cases, EMDR Therapy is very effective at taking the charge out of the memories and experiences so you can live life fully again.