Symptoms of Stress

What causes stress?

Many different things can cause stress either physical (actual danger) or emotional (worry). Any situation or pressure that causes stress is known as a stressor.

We often think of stressors as being negative, such as divorce, death, or fired from a job. But the fact is, anything that puts high demands on you or forces you to adjust can be stressful, even happy things like a new baby, getting married, or going to college.

Some of the most common sources of stress are:

Survival Stress: this is also know as "flight or fight". This is a natural response to danger, your body gives you a burst of energy in order to run or fight the dangerous situation.
Internal Stress: this is one of the most important kinds of stress to understand and manage. This is when people make them selves stressed by worrying about things that are out of their control or for no reason at all. Some people can become addicted to a tense, hurried lifestyle. They may even look for stressful situations and feel stress about things that aren't really stressful.
Environmental Stress: this can be one of the easier stressor to manage or avoid. This is when we get stressed from things around us like noise, crowing, traffic, pressure from work or family. When these are identified we can learn to deal with or avoid them in order to lower our stress.
Fatigue and Overwork: this can be one of the harder stressors to manage because people believe this is out of their control. This kind of stress builds up over a long period of time and can take a hard toll on your body. It can be caused by working too much or too hard, or not knowing how to manage your time. It is hard for people to take time out for them selves for rest and relaxation.

Having said all this, what causes stress can also depend on your perception of it. Something that is stressful for one person may not be stressful for another, they may even enjoy it. A good example of this is public speaking, some of us enjoy this while others are terrifies of it.

Even though there are some good examples of what causes stress, the key is finding what causes stress for you. What are your signs of stress?