The Main Causes of Stress
Change as a driving force
To understand the main causes of stress you need to focus on the way we perceive and react to changes.
Since changes are usually associated with threats it is not difficult to see that our fears are closely connected to the level of stress in our life.
Fears are the strongest driving force for the majority of humans and are the MOST BASIC CAUSE OF STRESS.
Other causes of stress
Some of the most straightforward causes of stress stated by people during surveys are:
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Lack of Finances
Having no money to meet your basic personal needs or the needs of your family is stressful indeed. However the source of stress is not the lack of money by itself. Rather people are more interested in their own survival. -
Work
Meeting tough deadlines, arguing with colleagues or your boss are not the most pleasant activities on the world and cause abnormal stress at work. Other sources of stress at work may be overtime (particularly during weekends), little or no rest at all, pressure to meet overestimated quality targets ...Working too much without a rest or sleep can result in overfatigue. An overstrained muscle can be made working a bit more; however our brain can not work without enough sleep.
Stress comes from the inability to cope with our duties, from committed mistakes and the need of reperforming the jobs already done... Stress may also come from the inability to trust your own work because of possible big mistakes, which have not been identified yet.
Keeping your position and salary are closely connected to the fear of death and the fear of not being alone.
- Family
Family disputes may be charging. In addition health issues with a family member are one of the causes of stress most often stated by people.However the underlying reason here again is the fear of death if we are talking about issues to our own children (we live through what we create – the loss of a child equals to your own death at a certain extent); and the fear of being alone if it is about issues with an elder family member.
Stress may also come from the inability to be at home for a long period of time resulting in an inability to see close familiy members such as spouse, children, parents ...
The parenting role itself can be stressful, modern motherhood makes many varied and often conflicting demands on women.
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Traveling
Constant traveling involves often change of physical conditions such as humidity, temperature, altitude, weather... Aclimatization requires setting a new rythm for your body, which might be extremely energy consuming and stressful. - Too Much Money
Having too much money is not as pleasant as it seems. Sustaining the wealth in the long run requires hard work and is extremely exhausting. The fears associated are the fear of assets loss, the fear of being defeated or the fear of being laughed at. ...
For sure the list may be longer but it is pointless to just enumerate score of causes of stress which will be always relating to one and the same source: FEARs caused by the never ending changes in our live.
The Role of Fears as causes of stress
You can find tons of information in the net about how to deal with numerous causes of stress. Unfortunately the techniques described in 99% of the cases ease only the effects rather than the causes of stress.
Let me give you an example. Let’s say you have had a terrible day at work resulting in an awful headache in the evening. You go back home you google “stress headache” and the beautiful search engine offers you the most popular methods to deal with headache. Most probably they will be something like massage techniques, relaxation, meditation or even some guys may dare recommend you pain killers!!!
Perfect, but dealing with your headache (if you manage of course) is not a long term solution! The headache was just one of the effects your stressful day at work had on you. The main cause was something else, completely untouched by your treatment.
The Fear of Death
If you dig deep enough in the causality relationships regarding our behavior you will always end up with the most basic root cause ever – the fear of death.Here I would like to specify that the fear of death is not only the fear of physical death. Anything relating to destruction of a creature of yours would have the same impact on you because through our creations we leave our mark on this planet; through our creations we live for ever. Of course, dealing with the fear of death is a big deal!
Let’s go back to the headache example above and see what the main reason for stress might be in this particular situation. Let’s make some additional assumptions:
You are an employee with an international company (for instance) and you have a number of bosses and numerous tough objectives to meet. Here is the causal relationship of the facts:
So do you think the pain killer or the massage would help you in dealing with your headache in the long run? The answer is: “definitely not!” It is “not” because if headache is the effect stress has on you, it will persist until you limit as much as possible the impacts of the main cause (your fears).
Crucial
Let’s have a look at another example. No one can argue that driving in a heavy city traffic is extremely stressful. Yes, here maybe it is much easier to feel the real source of the feeling! The fear of physical damage, accident and finally death starts working from the very moment you start the engine.
Other fears we are full of: fear to loose relatives, fear of physical pain, fear of failures, fear of being laughed at, fear of banishment, fear of assets loss, fear of errors and mistakes, fear to be judged, fear of being not good enough, fear of being imperfect ...
The list is too long. The bottom line of all of them is suffering. And we as living creatures give our best to avoid suffering as much as possible.
So if you want to deal with stress first you will have to learn how to deal with your fears.
The Behavior of Others as a Major Threat and Source of Stress
Few of us realize that one of the major causes of stress is the subsequent behavior of people affected by our own actions.
What goes around comes around! This is the objective Law of Giving and Receiving.
If you hurt a person the only normal reaction that you will get is to be hurt as well. The results: you get pissed off, you have additional work, you may be physically injured… Dealing with the negative attitude towards you involves additional efforts and stress.
An obvious conclusion stems from the above: If we manage to avoid or at least limit as much as possible the negative reactions towards us by managing appropriately our own attitude and behavior, we will succeed to reduce the stress levels in our live.
Simple and easy!
What if you have already hurt many people and you have more obstacles on your way than you can manage? Is it possible to have a fresh start?
Unfortunately in this world there is not a free lunch. The causality relationships will be always valid and you will have to bear the consequences of your previous actions.
The good news for you is that you can always have a fresh start. The Transformation Law grants you chances to change and there are ways to correct your previous mistakes and limit their negative impact on you.
The only thing you need is will for change and persistence...
Have We Omitted Causes of Stress You Know About?
Do Not Leave It Secret! Make Other People Know As Well!
We know there are numerous causes of stress. We tried to list the most basic ones. However we know also that everybody has his own personality and perceives stress in a different way. Feel free to share any causes of stress you know and are not listed above.
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Vishal P Rao