Stress management and counselling in primary care.

The term “stress” is now interwoven into popular and professional language, yet there remains a lack of clarity about its precise meaning, and its impact on health and well-being. Stress is considered by many to comprise those factors in day-to-day life which adversely affect adjustment and coping, but stress as a challenge or pressure to perform also has the potential to contribute to enhanced performance and productivity. Many see stress as exerting a major, often undesirable, influence on health and well-being, reflected in the perceived link between stress and the development of cancer, despite the lack of supporting scientific evidence.1 Stress is seen as contributing to other conditions such as heart disease, and certainly recent studies implicate stress as a factor in the clinical course of coronary heart disease.2