What is a stressor?
A stressor is a chemical or biological agent, an environmental condition, external stimuli and event that causes stress.
The stressor is unique for everyone
What is stressful for you might be a stimulant for others. The key is how you are using stressors, and how it is impacting you, either negatively or positively. That is, the more balanced you become, in a positive way, the better you can handle stressors.
For instance, you have identified a stressor that is negatively affecting you, and preventing you from achieving a goal.
Let’s say, you want to be financially successful but a stressor is going on in your life, and it is impacting on every other area of your life.
Your health goes down. Your relationship is in trouble. Your happiness is on shaky ground.
If you can get past the root of what is causing you stress, you can have a happy, fulfilling life. ’
You may think it is your inability to make or save money, but there is a lot more going on.
Again, how one experiences stress or uses stress is subjective. It depends on your internal resources, as well as your perspective.
A stressor storm
If you are experiencing chronic low-level stress, you know you are stressed, and you need a way out of the storm.
How you react to it will be different based on your experiences and how you have built up your stress response.
Some people seek out stressful situations because they need it to get motivated. Although they get a flood of feel-good chemicals, it’s only for a short period. They engage in unhealthy behaviors.
While you, on the other hand, are just the opposite. Stress might cause you to go into avoidance mode; you become withdrawn and silent.
You need to make sense of things. Having structure is good.
Your first response is to seek out short-term relief. You might do things that used to work when you were young. Although it got your needs met in the old days, in the long term, it probably doesn’t work today.
That is why we need proper stress management.
Although it is not a quick solution, over the long run, a good stress management system will help you respond and react differently to stress. It will help you not to deal with your chemical responses and the environment.
We will look at this more deeply later on.