Are you totally stressed out? Or just a teeny bit stressed?
Why is that?
Is it possible to live with no negative stress at all? Would you want to?
I challenge you to think about the answers to these questions.
I’ve seen several studies and a lot of research showing the correlation between high stress levels and health problems. It’s obvious that this thing we call stress is hazardous to our health, wealth, and our general well-being in life.
What is “stress”? We hear people complaining about it all the time, but what is it really? I’m referring to job and emotional stress affecting people (not the force exhibited on objects in physics experiments and not the accent on a syllable or musical note).
There are two types of stress. Distress (negative stress) and Eustress (positive stress). Eustress will be the topic of another post. For now, when I mention “stress” we are talking about distress.
I looked up “stress” on dictionary.com:
a specific response by the body to a stimulus, as fear or pain, that disturbs or interferes with the normal physiological equilibrium of an organism.
That’s interesting. Stress is a response to a stimulus. Is stress is a response that you create? If that’s true, shouldn’t you be able to control that response?
When I talk to people, they tend to view stress from their job or whatever as some external force that attacks them. They act as if they have no control over it. If this were true, then it may not even be worth talking about or trying to improve. But think about it. Is this true? What is the truth in this situation? Is stress something that we create, that we control, or is it an external force that acts on us outside of our control? Do you ever see people act cool, calm and collected despite disasters and destruction occurring everywhere around them?
Based on my own research over the years and my own personal life experiences, I have found that stress is something that you create in yourself, either consciously or unconsciously. You may not believe me just yet, but continue reading and let me know what you think at the end.
I always feel more “stressed out” when I am in a bad or negative mental state. Which is to say, when I am focusing on the negative things that could happen and all the bad things about a particular situation. I noticed that if I was thinking positive, focusing on that vacation I was going on the next month or mountain biking or something I am passionate about, the stressful situation would barely affect me at all. Nothing would be able to phase me.
My theory is that people think that they “should” feel stress, so they cause themselves to feel it. They get upset with themselves for not being able to do something well enough, or they tell themselves that something is impossible to do in the time alloted. These thoughts aren’t helping though. As I am sure you will agree, we all perform better when we are not stressed out.
I have found that just about everything in life comes down to having the right attitude.
“Happiness doesn’t depend on any external conditions, it is governed by our mental attitude”
Nobody’s ever going to be perfect. You will experience some level of stress. But through practice, study and awareness I have exponentially decreased the amount of bad stress in my life. I have a very low stress level in general, and you can too.
I’d like to hear from you. How much stress do you have in your life? What can you add to the discussion?
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Tags: Positive Attitude, stress
May 6th, 2008 at 3:31 am
Well…usually it’s the people around me who makes me stress.
May 6th, 2008 at 5:03 am
Nice post. It does seem odd that most of us think that stress is generated externally that someone or something stressed us out but actually when we look at it the stress comes from within.
Talking to other parents I might say “Argh! My kids are stressing me out” but if they really were the stress generating machines that I imagine them to be then I’m sure the school and other parents would have let me know by now.
I have realised that I generate a lot of stress for myself and I don’t handle it very well. I would be interested to hear more about the techniques you have used to improve things for you.
May 6th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Thanks for the comments and suggestions! I will posting more about specifics and different techniques that can be used to get better at this in an upcoming post.