Stress Causes

Every one of us is subjected to different kinds of stress once in a while. What is important is how we react to it and how we manage it. Knowing your own stress causes can help you in ways to manage your stress.

It is not necessary that what would cause stress in me would also bring stress to you or to other persons. General stress causes are threat, fear, uncertainty, cognitive dissonance, life causes and work.

Threat could range from the physical, social, or financial threats. A person would feel more stressed if they feel that there is nothing that they can do to remove or reduce the threat. Often times, a person needs to have the feeling of being in control of things around them. Like if a person looses a job, financial threat comes in and if a person is not able to find a new job soon, stress sets in. Things will get worst if the person cannot control expenses that they have to cope with.

The presence of a threat will lead to fear, which ultimately leads to stress. When a person starts to fear something, they tend to imagine possible outcome of things beyond their control and this is where stress sets in.

Uncertainty takes place if we are not able to predict things and so it is beyond our control and we feel threatened with that thing that caused the uncertainty.

Cognitive dissonance happens if there is a disparity with what we think and what we do. This is seen as stress. This usually happens when we are not able to meet commitments. A classic example is that a person who believes that he is committed and honest but there are times when some unexpected circumstances would come up and this would prevent them from fulfilling promises. They now fear that people will see then as dishonest. This then becomes a social stress.

There are several causes of stress in life and they may include: death of a love one, health problems or pregnancy, crime, self abuse (includes drugs and alcoholism), family changes, sexual problems, arguments, change in routine, change in location, money, environmental change, and increased responsibility.

Work is where most people get stressed. Key factors would usually be job demands, being controlled of things that you can only do, support received from colleagues and superiors, relationship with colleagues, understanding roles and responsibilities at work, and how far the company consults with their staff regarding work related changes.

The nature of the stressor will determine if the stress will cause a significant emotional or physical symptom on the person with stress. Knowing your stress causes can help you stay away from it.