What causes stress?
Stress develops when you have
more pressure on you than you are able to handle. By itself
stress is not necessarily bad or harmful. In fact, some stress
is necessary to motivate and mobilize people to take action
similar to the "necessity is the mother of invention" concept.
You start to stress out when stress turns into distress.
Distress occurs when you shift from focusing on a goal to
finding the easiest and quickest way to relieve distress. Rather
than proactively preventing problems, you begin to react to the
circumstances around you. This triggers impulses and reactions
that relieve tension much more than they resolve the underlying
problem. The more distress you feel, the greater the impulse to
react.
Unfortunately irresistible impulses are usually negative
coping reactions. Such reactions help you feel better for the
moment, but don't improve your life in the long run. For
instance, you may procrastinate on doing something you believe
you can put off, because you can handle it next week. Or perhaps
you say "yes" when you want to say "no" just to get someone off
your back. TOP
But the more you procrastinate, the more difficult it is to
eventually do what you're putting off. The more you say "yes"
when you want to say "no," the more you feel like a victim and
the more resentful you become. This only aggravates the
situation.
To make matters worse, the less you're able to successfully
cope with distress, the more you fall behind and the lower your
confidence and self-esteem. The less confident and worthwhile
you feel, the less pressure it takes to feel stress thus
repeating the cycle each time you experience these feelings.
You can't avoid pressure in your life. Unless you act early
to prevent stress from becoming distress, you run the risk of
your negative coping reactions becoming habitual self-defeating
behaviors. If you don't take steps to develop a more positive
coping style, these behaviors will eventually become ingrained
and continue to negatively impact you. TOP
Coping with Stress
Once stress becomes distress,
it's like trying to stop a 747 taxiing down the runway. It's
much easier to stop it before it moves too far.
You are most motivated to deal with stress is when you're
faced with negative consequences of a hasty, impulsive action.
Resist the temptation to beat up on yourself. Instead, take out
an index card and write down, "If I had this stressful situation
to deal with again, what I would have done differently is
-----."
Put the index card in your purse or wallet and commit to
acting differently the next time you're faced with a stressful
situation. You may not actually change your behavior during the
next stressful situation, but sooner or later you will. In fact,
just reacting to the current situation in this constructive
fashion will help you feel better immediately.
TOP
Mastering Stress?
The longer you can stretch out
the time between stress and distress, the greater the
opportunity you have to pause and choose positive coping
behaviors rather than reacting negatively and complicating your
life.
Try The 6 Step Pause to help you resist acting on
impulses and responding to stressful situations more
constructively.
The 6 Step Pause
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1 |
Physical Awareness |
A physical sensation is usually
one of the earliest signals that you're stressed. Identify
what you're feeling such as tightness in your stomach, neck,
lightheadedness, nausea, etc.
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2 |
Emotional Awareness |
Attach an emotion to that
physical sensation, as in: "I feel angry, frustrated,
afraid, bored, hurt, etc."
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3 |
Impulse Awareness |
Fill in the blank, "Feeling x
(the emotion in step 2) makes me want to ------."
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4 |
Consequence Awareness |
Fill in, "The likely result if I
act on that impulse is ------."
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5 |
Solution Awareness
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Fill in, "A better thing to do,
would be ------." |
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6 |
Benefit Awareness |
Fill in, "If I follow the
solution in Step 5, the benefit is likely to be ------."
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