anxiety and stress

[SWM]

i am interested to know peoples experiences of stress and anxiety. i am putting together an essay on treatment of anxiety and stress using rational emotive behaviour therapy (REBT)

stress and anxiety are different experiences though stress is apparently due to prolonged or repeated anxiety. however anxiety is not a prerequisite to stress some people might not experience stress but experience a lot of anxiety. some people might experience stress but might not be aware of any anxiety.


According to REBT there are three methods of dealing with anxiety and stress, i am interested to see if people use these methods unconcsiously without understanding what they are doing, or if they use the methods consciously and understand what they are doing. or any range of in-betweens therein.

if you can help me it would be much appreciated and of course i will disclose some off my own weirdo ways of dealing with things later in the thread.


here are some questions to think about;

what situations would you feel anxious or stressed?
how does anxiety / stress effect you?
how do you deal with stress / anxiety?

[Shell]

what situations would you feel anxious or stressed?

I don't feel much anxiety anymore at all - except for short term stuff like test taking, giving presentations in front of a lot of people, things like that.  I get stressed with school, when the workload is high and I'm trying to balance a kid and work at the same time.

how does anxiety / stress effect you?

Anxiety - get really nervous, can get a little queasy if I'm really nervous.
Stress - lots of headaches, sadness, anger.

how do you deal with stress / anxiety?

Anxiety - breathing techniques; it seems to be the only thing that calms me.
Stress - I don't handle stress very well.  I tend to bottle things up and things end up piling and I finally fall into a state of sadness or irritability that can last for days if things are really bad.  To cope with it, I can turn to some good uplifting music, exercise, go on youtube and look for funny stupid stuff to watch.  Somehow, I love work enough that I find myself less stressed there.

[SWM]

thanks for the input cecile.

you said the only time you get nervous now is test taking, giving presentations etc, do you know what it is about those situations that make you feel anxious?

with stress do you get stressed because their is too much (of what ever) for you to handle?