The Up for It? Stress Management Service

The Up For It Project delivers an holistic, professional and unique Stress Management Service to clients in the local community. The service aims to work with clients on an individual basis to help them identify what stressors in their life are causing them physical, emotional and mental problems, and how to better manage stress so that they lead healthier, more relaxed and happier lives. Clients are offered up to twelve weekly one-to-one sessions with a therapist or counsellor.

• What is stress?
• Consequences of stress
• Managing stress
• A professional service
  

Stress

The stress response is a natural and innate aspect of human biology which allows us to respond automatically to situations we find challenging.

However, because this is an automatic body response most people move in and out of the stress response throughout their day with little or no awareness of what is happening to them and their body. As a result, many people do not realise they are stressed, and often find it difficult to identify what has stressed them. This means people have little or no awareness of the effects of stress on their physical, mental and emotional well-being. 

Given all this, stress is often regarded negatively when, in fact, the stress response can have positive effects. It increases our alertness, and our muscle strength and stimulates our senses which gives us the ability to respond to situations. It helps us prepare for exams, tests, interviews and competitions and makes us feel more excited and alive. Problems with stress only arise when people have more stress that they can cope with, or they fail to take ‘timeout’ from stressful situations to relax and unwind.

Consequences of stress

Peoples' stress levels are increased not only by the way they live their lives, but also by their attitude to themselves and their circumstances.

If a person’s attitude to life and what happens to them, continually activates their stress response and s/he does not take the time to allow their body to return to normal then that person is likely to suffer:– physically (headaches, back aches, sleeplessness, ulcers, bowel and skin problems), emotionally (feelings of anxiety, anger, numbness, depression, tearfulness) and mentally (judgemental of self and others, unassertive, negative outlook, obsessive, indecisive).

Thus, a great deal of people’s physical, mental and emotional problems are either caused by stress or are aggravated by it. Also, what people think, feel and believe has a major effect on how they deal with what happens to them and therefore, on their stress levels.

Managing stress

Our stress management programme, offers clients a variety of services:

• Firstly, it offers stress relief – it gives people the opportunity to experience therapies (eg massage, reiki, reflexology) which helps them alleviate some of the stress in their bodies.
• Secondly, it provides strategies - relaxation techniques - which help people better identify signs of stress and tension and then how to let
it go.
• Thirdly, it empowers clients to take more responsibility for, and control of their lives, and so better manage their own stress levels. The service does this by helping clients become more aware of their thoughts and feelings, how these affects how they behave in situations, and how this then impacts on their stress levels. With the therapist’s support, clients can then work towards changing the way they think and what they do, thus learning to respond to situations in different and more appropriate ways. This reduces the clients' stress levels and allows them to live their lives in healthier and different ways.

A professional service

All of the Up for It Therapists are professionally trained, with a minimum of 
3 years experience of working with clients. Our Service is a BACP (British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy) Registered and Approved Organisation and all of the staff are contracted to work within the BACP’s Ethical Framework for Good Practice. All our counselling staff are also individual members of the BACP and are either Accredited or are working towards Accreditation with BACP.

The Stress Centre Co-ordinator is an Accredited BACP Counsellor and Therapist who oversees the service and provides regular clinical supervision to the Therapeutic Staff. Our Counsellors also receive bi-monthly, external, clinical supervision to ensure that we maintain our high standards of service to our clients.

In accordance with BACP standards, the project also provides our staff with opportunities for Career Professional Development, in the form of internal and external workshops. Our staff’s commitment to ongoing personal development ensures that we offer our clients a first-class service.