Where Does Stress Come From?

stress

Stress is a normal part of everyday life. But have you ever wondered where it comes from? What is the origin of stress?

From where does our stress originate?

If you were to ask 10 people where their stress comes from, you will very likely get an array of answers like, their children, family, work, finances, etc. These are stress factors that are common to most of us. But, when you get answers like these, and try to dig around a bit to understand them, you will often find that while all of these things can contribute to our stress, they are not where the stress actually comes from. So we ask again, where does stress come from?

There are lots of different schools of thought about where stress comes from. The fact of the matter is that stress is our body’s natural response to the demands that we place upon it. The demands may be physical, mental, or emotional in nature, and when we place these demands on our body, our natural chemicals and hormones, like cortisol and neuropeptides are released into our bodies and that is when we feel stressed. Sometime the demands we place on ourselves are unrealistic and unnatural. It is small wonder that our minds and, or our bodies break down.

Stressful thinking leads to stressful feelings.

Stress can stem from within our own minds. We can often conjure up stress through our internal worries, fears, and anxieties. Sometime, we place too high a priority on everything. Everything in life is vying for our attention. And, everything suddenly becomes an emergency.

Stress is an ignorant state. It believes everything is an emergency www.MartinaMcGowan.com (1)

We can fall into the habit of negative thinking where we somehow work to convince ourselves of something being true, when it is not.

For example, have you ever convinced yourself that you are not good enough, smart enough, strong enough, or pretty enough to do something? This negative self-talk creates stress within your own mind. Unfortunately, these thoughts are often churning away while you are not consciously aware of them. We can come to accept these negative thoughts as the truth, even when we know logically that it is far from it. This is why we need to work at taming our negative thoughts and begin replacing them with positive truths.

Stress is a normal part of life so we cannot escape it altogether. What really matters is how we deal with stress. But, each of us experiences stress a little differently, so there is no one-size-fits-all, universal stress treatment.

Deal with it!

As you have now learned, stress is our bodily response to the pressures and demands that we place on ourselves in our every day lives. To limit the negative effects of stress, things like heart attacks, breathing problems, and gastrointestinal (stomach) problems, we have to learn how to actively manage our stress. There are lots of simple stress coping strategies. Here are a few to get you started:

Get more exercise
Use positive self-talk
Get more rest and more restful sleep
Eat a healthier diet
Know your work limits
Say, “No,” more often
Ask for help
Carve out time for more fun
Use positive imagery
Do deep breathing exercises- qigong, pranayama, are two examples
Listen to music that calms you
De-clutter- your life and your workspace
Keep things simple

These are all very effective ways of dealing with the stresses in life, but, we must keep in mind that our goal is to proactively manage our stress.

If we only react to stress, rather than trying to be proactive about things, we will spend a great deal of our time putting out fires, rather than enjoying our lives.

The alternative, is that we continually work at implementing healthy techniques for our stress management.