Stress and Stress Injury
Stress is needed in our lives, it helps us perform well, focus, and protect ourselves from perceived harm. Balancing personal life demands with career demands can be taxing. When stress becomes persistent and we struggle to manage it, it can cause quite a few emotional and physiological issues. Cortisol - the stress hormone, is responsible for the healthy responses we need but can be deadly if we are producing too much for too long. Stress is one of the most pervasive issues among uniformed personnel due to the stressful nature of the work.
Sometimes we need to make significant changes in our lives to stave off unneeded pressure. When exploring this issue in counseling, we may place focus on creating boundaries; re-structuring how we spend our time; creating or strengthening selfcare behaviors; processing stressful issues we tend to internalize and providing education.
We take stress seriously and strive to help clients manage their stress better.
We find comfort in knowing that if we face a life-threatening crisis, there are people in our community that have chosen to answer our call for help. First responders place themselves in unpredictable, high-risk situations to be of service to their community. The accumulation of stress over time can cause some psychological and physical injuries. The changes we notice may closely resemble trauma symptoms. Injury may feel like a never-ending burnout. We struggle to control our emotions and our worldview begins to negatively change. Trying to work through it may seem like a task that is much too large and complicated for us to tackle.