If I asked you to list and rank order the 5 events that cause you the most stress and then to tell me how you relieve stress what would you say? I know what I would say. My wife and friends and I have just returned from a holiday in south-east Alaska. In Juneau, Alaska’s tiny capital, there is a cable car that goes from the center of the town up to the top of Mt Roberts. My wife loves these experiences – I detest them. I didn’t realize I had acrophobia – extreme fear of heights – until I was driving up to a small village in India called Nainital. This pretty little British hill station lies at 6000 feet in the Himalayas. The trip nearly paralysed me. The experience also humbled me as I learned what it is like to have screamingly high levels of stress, anxiety and fear.
Each one of us responds differently to challenging or threatening experiences. Some people love to abseil or sky jump – others go into a mild panic when they drive on a road that has a steep drop right next to it or if they have to climb onto the roof to clear the gutters. As I have said, for me, driving on high exposed roads is extremely stressful and I feel anxious and nervous during this part of any journey. I know that heights stress me out so I take steps to ensure that I do not drive on such roads or, if I have to, I drive with extreme caution. My stress relief strategies then are avoidance or intensely cautious exposure.
What are your triggers? What things, creatures, events, meetings, circumstances are your stressors? There are quite a few groups of triggers or stressors that will increase your adrenaline rush and make you feel anxious and worried. Let’s look at some of them and, while you are reviewing my list of triggers, note down any that are a particular worry for you.
There are many workplace triggers that induce stress for people. These include poor role description, inadequate working environment, boring work, being asked to do things that don’t fit your skill set, inadequate or insufficient training, and poor bosses. Sometimes the work culture that creates stress, racism, sexual harassment, discriminatory treatment and so. There are many potential triggers in the workplace and the job for you is to find the best stress relief mechanisms.
I grew up on a farm so I am not particularly concerned about snakes but many people have deep fears about these creatures. Consider your own list of personal fears. Sometimes they are social fears like attending a party when you don’t feel confident or appearing dumb or uninformed. Body shape and being overweight can destroy people’s self-esteem and cause social stress.
There are of course, stressors that are family based. Worries about your children’s education and development and/or their behaviour, relationship problems, financial difficulties. Drugs are always a worry for parents and for the victims themselves. Feeling dependent is a stressor. Triggers can be unwelcome news, problems with fidelity, fears about the future. There are plenty of triggers out there.
We each need to know what it is that causes stress and we have to learn how to relieve the stress. I use a simple acronym to help people manage their stress – BE CALM. It is B for build, E for examine, C for confront, A for accept, L for let go (forgive, forget), and M for Move on with your life. I explain this more carefully in clinical settings but the important point is that we can map out a program to relieve and manage stress very well.
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