Tips to Understand Your Stress Triggers
Sunday, November 16th, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed
If I asked you to list and rank order the 5 events that cause you the most stress and then to tell me how you relieve stress what would you say? I know what I would say. My wife and friends and I have just returned from a holiday in south-east Alaska. In Juneau, Alaska’s tiny capital, there is a cable car that goes from the center of the town up to the top of Mt Roberts. My wife loves these experiences - I detest them. I didn’t realize I had acrophobia - extreme fear of heights - until I was driving up to a small village in India called Nainital. This pretty little British hill station lies at 6000 feet in the Himalayas. The trip nearly paralysed me. The experience also humbled me as I learned what it is like to have screamingly high levels of stress, anxiety and fear.
Each one of us responds differently to challenging or threatening experiences. Some people love to abseil or sky jump - others go into a mild panic when they drive on a road that has a steep drop right next to it or if they have to climb onto the roof to clear the gutters. As I have said, for me, driving on high exposed roads is extremely stressful and I feel anxious and nervous during this part of any journey. I know that heights stress me out so I take steps to ensure that I do not drive on such roads or, if I have to, I drive with extreme caution. My stress relief strategies then are avoidance or intensely cautious exposure.
What makes you stressed and worried? Spiders, snakes, people, tests, and public speaking are very common stressors. Look at what I’m going to say and work out which ones are problems for you. What is it that makes you feel terrified and stressed? Sometimes it’s people, sometimes it’s places sometimes it’s insects or spiders. Examine the list below to see which ones cause you great distress.
There are many workplace triggers that induce stress for people. These include poor role description, inadequate working environment, boring work, being asked to do things that don’t fit your skill set, inadequate or insufficient training, and poor bosses. Sometimes the work culture that creates stress, racism, sexual harassment, discriminatory treatment and so. There are many potential triggers in the workplace and the job for you is to find the best stress relief mechanisms.
I grew up on a farm so I am not particularly concerned about snakes but many people have deep fears about these creatures. Consider your own list of personal fears. Sometimes they are social fears like attending a party when you don’t feel confident or appearing dumb or uninformed. Body shape and being overweight can destroy people’s self-esteem and cause social stress.
Being a family can be a stressful event. If you are a parent, saving up to college, paying your kids dental bills, determining when they should be able to date, unwanted pregnancies - the list goes on. You might be worried about your own relationships and this causes you constant stress. Families do create stress but they also provide stress relief.
Our job is to work out what causes stress for each of us. In therapy, I propose a model called BE CALM. I use this model to help people develop a stress relief and stress management strategy. B is for build, E for examine, C for confront, A for accept, L for let go (forgive, forget), and M for Move on with your life. We can’t let stress manager our lives; we need to learn good stress relief tips and strategies.
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