Stress and Causes of Stress
What are the causes of stress in your life? Unhealthy stress has been defined as the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressure or other types of demands placed on them.
Different things, whether major upheavals or everyday situations, can trigger stress in different people. Since we each have our own unique ways of coping with change, what is stressful to one person may not be stressful to another.
Most of the time, a combination of external events (or the anticipation of them) and how we see our own ability to manage them will cause us to feel stress and exhibit
symptoms of stress,
Simply put, anything that requires us to adjust to a change in our environment is likely to trigger stress. Naturally, our body reacts to any such changes with physical, mental and emotional responses.
Typically, when we reach a point where the pressure of dealing with all of the issues facing us goes beyond our ability to cope, stress will occur.
There are two main categories of stressors: external and internal.
Examples of external stressors:
- Physical environmental aspects such as noise, bright lights, heat, small, confined areas.
- Negative dealings with people (social) including rudeness or aggression.
- Organizational, including rules and regulations, "red tape," or deadlines.
- Major life occurances such as a relative dying, a job loss, a promotion, or pregnancy/having a child.
- Everyday aggravations such as traffic, misplacing your keys, car breaking down.
Examples of internal stressors:
- Worrying about situations that you cannot control or change.
- Health and lifestyle choices including caffeine, insufficient sleep, excessive schedule.
- Negative self-talk including pessimistic thinking, over-analyzing, self-critical.
- Mind traps such as expectations being unrealistic, taking things personally, all-or-nothing thinking, distorting reality, and unyielding thinking.
- Stressful personality characteristics including “Type A” personality, perfectionist, workaholic, people pleaser.
The good news is that there are effective methods you can learn to
manage stress
and improve the quality of your life.
For a really quick and easy method to relieve some stress right now, try this
fun stress relief puzzle.
Receive our free monthly ezine with ongoing updates, tips, quotes and more. Sign up here.....
Return from Causes Of Stress to Secret Changes Homepage
|
