Are You Ready To Experience Less Stress And Enjoy Better Health?
Do you feel overwhelmed, irritable, uncomfortable and consumed with worry and fear? Are you struggling to remember things, stay focused and effectively engage with tasks at hand? Perhaps incessant, looping thoughts are keeping you from being present with loved ones and causing you to miss out on what is right in front of you. Maybe heightened stress is taking its toll physically, causing sleeping, eating and digestion problems and/or creating or contributing to a stress-related chronic health condition. It might be that a struggle to maintain boundaries between work and home life is creating increased tension in personal relationships and diminished time for self-care. Or, maybe you’re using food, drugs, alcohol, sex, shopping or technology in an attempt to mitigate stress, but overuse and/or misuse is creating more problems and making you feel even worse. Are you ready to feel better mind, body and spirit? Do you want to calm your mind, relax your body and build a life that supports your health goals and ideal lifestyle?
Stress Is Omnipresent In Our Culture
If you, your teenager or another loved one is suffering from heightened and/or chronic stress, you are far from alone. With eight of out 10 American adults reporting feeling stress either sometimes or frequently every day, chronic stress (stress that interferes with one’s ability to function normally over an extended period of time) is rapidly becoming a public health crisis.
With everyone always talking about how stressed out they feel and our culture-focused drive toward overworking, being busy and stressed is celebrated in today’s society, and it almost seems normal—regardless of how poorly it makes us feel. Within our fast-paced, technology-driven lives, it’s common to struggle to maintain effective boundaries between our professional and personal lives, and millions of Americans are under extreme stress, suffering mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually.
Stress affects the body, mood and behavior. It impacts our relationships, ability to be present, physical health and overall sense of wellbeing. Stress wreaks havoc on our digestive systems, increases cortisol production, which can cause unwanted weight gain, and keeps us awake at night. Chronic stress is also cited as contributing to multiple health problems, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, IBS, obesity and diabetes. Various physicians also prescribe multiple medications targeting specific symptoms rather than looking at each of us as an integrated whole. As a result, millions of Americans are overmedicated, increasingly stressed out and not experiencing any real or sustainable relief.
The good news is that there are many effective and scientifically validated ways to manage and mitigate stress. As a highly trained and experienced psychotherapist, dietician, nutritionist and mindfulness specialist, I can help you figure out what forms of stress management best support your needs, goals and lifestyle and devise effective ways to integrate self-care into your daily life.
An Integrated Approach To Stress Management Helps You Cultivate Health, Happiness And Long-Term Relief 
There is no one form of stress management that works for everyone, regardless of what many programs tout. The truth is that there are many ways to reduce stress and promote optimal living. Whether through relaxation techniques, autogenics (self-hypnosis), mindfulness exercises, meditation, mindful movement or another relaxation approach., we’ll work together to develop a holistic and realistic stress reduction strategy that helps you feel better in mind, body and spirit.
In stress management sessions, we’ll begin with orienting you to the experience of simply being present in the moment. As you notice your breath, how your body feels and the nature of your thoughts, I’ll thoughtfully and gently help guide you in getting grounded. You can learn how your body feels when it is under stress and how to release that tension, much like how you flex and then release a muscle. While the practice isn’t that difficult and can be done any time, any where, it takes an experienced guide at first to help you understand what it actually feels like to relax a bit, expand that capacity to relax and learn to recognize and eventually initiate the shift on your own.
In stress management sessions, we’ll also discuss diet, lifestyle, any physical issues and health concerns and what techniques and changes feel realistic for you. As we look at all of the components of your life, we’ll set practical goals and create actionable steps you can take as you gradually make changes, begin to feel better, build on momentum and experience increased confidence in your ability to enact change in your life. You can also learn to give yourself permission to slow down, shift habit patterns, let go of the incessant mental chatter that doesn’t serve you and retrain your mind over time.
We’ll also explore how to set and maintain effective boundaries and ways for you to engage in self-care, which is imperative to long-term stress relief. It’s never too late to start incorporating self-care practices into your life, and through proper diet, adequate sleep, joyful forms of exercise and various mindfulness and relaxation techniques, you can feel increasingly more grounded and develop the capacity to move through life’s inevitable challenges with more grace, courage and ease.
Regardless of your current stress level, it is possible to feel more calm, present and better overall. You can experience relief from the physical, mental and emotional symptoms of stress and live with more ease, flow, self-compassion and curiosity. As you shift into a more calm and collected way of being, you can make more skillful choices, stop sweating the small stuff and allow yourself the personal time and care that will not only improve your life, but also have a positive effect on those around you.
You still might wonder if working with a holistic stress reduction specialist is right for you…
It seems like there is a medication for everything else. Can’t I just take a pill to relax, too?
I respect that everyone has their own path toward healing; however, if you’re looking to take a pill in an attempt to mitigate stress, I’m likely not the right practitioner for you. Alternatively, if you’re looking for a holistic, sustainable approach, there are so many ways to alleviate stress that do not include the use of medication. Rather than apply bandages, we’ll address the root causes of your stress and design solutions that work specifically for you. I’ve effectively worked with thousands of people all over the country on stress management, and if you’re truly ready to forgive yourself for imperfections, gradually and gently get curious about your inner self-critic and feel increasingly more awake, aware and alive, I can help.
I’m struggling to get everything done as it is. I want to experience less stress, but I simply don’t have the time to add another weekly appointment to my calendar.
Chronic stress is a serious issue that can be extremely damaging to bodily systems and negatively affect all aspects of your life. It is imperative that you take care of yourself, and, in doing so, you will inevitably become more productive in the time spent on tasks and better able to care for the people around you. That said, I understand the demands that so many of us have on our time, which is why I also offer online counseling. We don’t have to be in the same physical space for this work to be effective. Though online therapy, you can cut out travel time and take our meetings from the comfort of your home or office.
With so much to do and people to care for taking time for myself feels selfish.
Again, I can’t stress the importance of self-care and how vital it is to your current and long-term wellbeing that you give yourself permission to take care of you. Even just dedicating an hour a week to yourself for stress therapy can have a profound impact on how you feel and relate to others. You can learn how to stay calm, regulated and strong even when in the midst of an oftentimes chaotic world, which is the best gift you can give not only to yourself, but also to the people in your life.
You Can Live With More Ease And Flow
If you’re in Scottsdale, AZ or the surrounding area and are interested in stress management treatment for yourself, your teen or another loved one, I can help. I invite you to contact me through the website or at 480-675-4568 to schedule a no-obligation call or meeting to discuss your needs and goals and determine if we’re a good fit. Due to the mind-heart-body-spirit quality of this work, I’m not the right fit for everyone; however, I truly love working with clients who seek practical, holistic healing and are ready to increase self-awareness, cultivate self-compassion and make the changes needed to enjoy long-term relief.