Category Archives: Stress
The ABC of Anxiety
I was watching breakfast TV this morning to catch up on the Cold Blast that has a tight grip on New Zealand for some days now. While sipping my hot cuppa after the weather update I listened to a psychologist talking about anxiety, how normal it is (according to her more people are suffering from …
Coping When Disaster Strikes
A terrifying disaster like the Christchurch Earthquake has a huge impact on people. We are confronted with the fragility of life, with the unpredictability of our physical safety on this planet, and with our inability to protect ourselves and loved ones from such tragedies. Trauma people may have experienced earlier in their lives often gets …
Fear not Fear
Fear in all it’s many guises is probably the biggest obstacle survivors of abuse are confronted with. Even though fear is vitally important in warning people of impending danger, most survivors will experience fear, anxiety, panic, or even terror in a very crippling way. Rather than being a warning sign, fear is over-generalised and becomes psychologically …
Don’t Quit
There are a number of times in a year where people get easily stressed and become vulnerable to get flooded with hurtful memories that then become hard to cope with. Christmas is such a precarious time of struggle where everything feels too hard. Some people end up thinking of quitting. I would say ‘don’t quit’ …
Grounding Meditation
Here is another relaxation / meditation exercise. This one is more focused on grounding yourself. Grounding is one of the concepts used in therapy quite a bit. In the widest sense it means 'getting both of your feet firmly on the ground'. Do you feel shaky, spacey, or confused? A grounding exercise might be just …
STOP – BREATHE – RELAX
Have you ever wondered how you can relax? You will have heard about tapes that help you to get into a relaxed state – but usually you can't find it the moment you need it. Here is some good advice. Relaxation is something that you need to practice. Ideally you practice it every day for …
Can You Trust Your Feelings?
A big part of recovery from the legacies of sexual abuse is getting to a point where you have a sense of control over your emotional states. That means not to be thrown around all the time – or a lot of the time – by feelings of hurt, anxiety, fear, panic, suspicion, envy, hopelessness,"self-loathing, …
6 Tips to Reduce Stress
I have just discovered a great blog about PTSD with very useful articles, one of which was about how to deal with the stress caused by PTSD. It's based on the fact that stress is caused by elevated cortisol levels in the blood and the article lists a number of things you can do to …
6 Tips to Reduce Stress
I have just discovered a great blog about PTSD with very useful articles, one of which was about how to deal with the stress caused by PTSD. It's based on the fact that stress is caused by elevated cortisol levels in the blood and the article lists a number of things you can do to …
The Rocky Road of Integration
There seems to be a myth about integration where people expect never to have flashbacks, depression, and triggers to interfere with their lives. Although they interlectually understand and even proclaim that "recovery is a lifelong process", they get discouraged when they find themselves in spaces that are very reminicent of the 'bad times'. So here …
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