Sources of Stress

Stress is generally perceived  by most of us as an external matter.  We think it comes at us from life and circumstances, from our boss, from our partner, from finances not meeting our commitments or even from a Global situation like COVID-19.  We have not chosen to have any of these pressures and stresses in our lives, yet Psychological Studies tell us that it is not the external circumstances that we get placed under that damage us, but more, how we perceive them and deal with them.

We all know that this is true.  For example, we may have seen let us take a common situation, several students prepare for, and go through exams.  The level of stress is not uniform all across.  One person may eat less, stop paying attention to their appearance, get very worried and exclude themselves from everything except studying.  On the other end of the spectrum, another student may be relaxed and act as if nothing were happening, and clearly there is a lot of in-between shades.  This is just to point out approach rather than to focus on the results.  So real life observations as well as Psychological Research tell us that how we choose to approach a pressuring matter can be different and so it is fair to deduce that the consequences will be different too.

The choice, we talked about above links up External Pressures with Internal Pressures.  That means say an exam is a potential threat ie I could take the exam and at worst fail.  Some of us tend to focus on that, others, may focus on the other side.  The exam can be a way for me to achieve and demonstrate my success.  The type of pressure that such perception and focus place on the self makes a difference in the Health outcome and lifestyle