Insights To What Causes Stress

by Inspiration4Living.com

One of the perennial questions that we hear is – what causes stress?

Stress is often thought of as a negative aspect to life, but in fact there are different types of stress. There is positive stress and there is negative stress.

Positive stress can be thought of as that anxious anticipation before a competition. When an athlete talks about the nerves before a big game and not being able to wait until they could get out on the field to compete, this is form of positive stress.

Negative stress is what most people associate with stress. This can range from the pressures they find at work to perform and to get assignments done to having to deal with an argument or fight with a significant other. Stress basically begins in the mind and resonates outward throughout the body. Worry and fear are some of the most common underlying factors behind what causes stress.

Yet that is only a small portion of the answer to what causes stress. It is believed that stress is caused by the body’s natural defense mechanisms. Thousands of years ago, when mankind was walking among the world and having to deal with animals that would hunt them, as well as other humans from other tribes, they relied on their body’s natural defenses. We know these today to be the fight or flight response.

If you were to see a car barreling down the road, out of control, and coming straight for you, your adrenaline would kick in and your mind on an unconscious level would kick into its fight or flight mode. The adrenaline that would course through your bloodstream would give you a momentary surge of strength and speed that would help you to get out of the way of that car.

When we worry about work, school, or relationships, or anything else in our life for that matter, our mind begins to kick into its own fight or flight mode. A homework assignment that we can’t figure out how to do may not be a threat to our personal safety, but your mind cannot differentiate between physical threat and emotional threat. It treats both of them the same way.

Therefore, your brain begins to work feverishly and releases some of that adrenaline through your body so that you can determine what course of action you need to take in order to remain safe.

Do you now have a better idea of what causes stress?

It is important to note, however, that even though you may become ‘accustomed’ to stress, that doesn’t mean that your body will be able to function better when it’s stressed. Many people believe that when they are stressed that they are able to work more efficiently. This isn’t true. In fact, your body is at a disadvantage when under stress because it cannot keep up that frenetic pace forever.

Although you may know the biological factors about what causes stress, our behaviors and the way we think about things that we need to do in life often dictates how our brain manages and interprets the stressors we send to it.

For more information on what causes stress, do check out the related articles and pages on the rest of this website.

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