As I write this blog, the Farnborough Air Show is practising its air displays before the show begins in earnest next week. This all happens a couple of kilometres from my clinic and so I can watch the air displays out of my window. As I watch one aircraft loop-the-loop close to the ground, I wonder at the adrenaline levels of the pilot.
The stress on the pilot must be enormous – not only do they have to put up with the high G-forces battering their body, they also have to consider the safety of the crowds in the airfield just below them, not to mention their own safety. It is a level of stress that most of us would not be able to tolerate.
Everyone has a different capacity for stress. For the pilots doing acrobatics in Farnborough – they need to retain total control over their mind and body while undergoing enormous physical and mental stress. You only take a job like that if you have a high capacity for stress. The same goes for people with high pressure jobs – captains of industry, bomb disposal units, prime ministers and so on.
There are people have a low capacity for handling stress – people who go to pieces when even under the smallest amount of pressure. Most of us are in between these two extremes.
Of course, our capacity for handling stress affects anxiety. If you have a low tolerance for stress – your “stress bucket” will fill up fast. Once your stress bucket starts to fill, the fight-or-flight centre of the brain starts to take over, and you feel that sense of anxiety. This does not mean that someone with a higher capacity for stress will not develop anxiety – it just that they will tolerate more stress before the anxiety starts to take over.
So what is the take-away from all this?
It is simply that we all need to recognise that, just because someone else can handle a lot of stress – it does not mean that you have to. The opposite is also true: just because someone else cannot handle a lot of stress, it does not mean that you can’t either.
Our reaction to stress is an individual thing. We all need to learn what our own limits are, what we can do, what we can’t, and where the balance lies. If you find something that stresses you too much – do less of it. If you find something you can do that works – do more of it.
And Finally …
If you need help with your levels of stress and anxiety … if you want to get back in control of your life again … contact me … I will be happy to have a chat, and if you want the services of a good qualified hypnotherapist to help, I work out of my clinic in Fleet, Hampshire and would be happy to help.
Photo by Aleksandar Pasaric on Pexels