Stressed-out, but why?

Psychologists, also those home-grown, excel at compiling seemingly useless rankings of most stressful events in life. The lists are usually based on surveys and top picks such as spouse’s death, divorce of job loss tend to repeat on all of them.

Oddly enough, when you speak of stress factors, traumatic events, such as bereavement, break-up or some other manifestations of losses naturally spring to mind. As it turns out, both trauma and joy can bring about serious anxiety. Nearly all life events which rank among top10 most stressful situations have one common denominator – they entail a noticeable change in life, which might be either positive or negative. If your close relative passes away, if you divorce, if your offspring fly the nest, the change is (in most instances) irreversible and you have get over it. On the other hand, birth of a child, taking up new job, getting seriously involved in a relationship (especially after years of living on one’s own), or moving to a new place, are considered to be positive changes in life, yet for most people cause some degree of tension.

The rankings also contain nerve-fraying events one has to live through, such as family gatherings during Christmas, meeting girlfriend’s or boyfriend’s parents for the first time, public speeches (for individuals affected by stage fright), job interviews, visits to a dentist or just doing something for the first time (travelling abroad, etc.).

Definitely stress should be tamed, yet since humans vary between among one another, there is no suitable-to-all prescription for coping with it. Personally, I strive to rationalise what exactly can cause anxiety, i.e. dig down to reach the roots of my anxiety and overpower them directly. I cannot claim to be successful all the time, but I am proud to have brought under control stress at workplace and to have learnt to keep safe distance towards things which wind up but are beyond my control.

Finally, I posit people get stressed-out every time they walk out of their comfort zone, which leads to a foregone conclusion stress is in many situations positive and natural since it accompanies making your dreams come true. As my friends says, everything you dream of is on the other side of you fears, the fears you need to overcome. In other situations, i.e. those categorised as traumas, experiencing stress proves we are humans and cannot get over some events in life devoid of feelings. 

Off to Italy in business next Sunday, so the next posting (photo coverage of the trip) around 17 September.