The Causes Of Stress

Like most people, I have stressed throughout my life over many different motives. 

Although I still worry about certain things in my life, I have learned how to handle most of the bad situations and I will mention in here how I go about doing this. 

Basically, the type of person I am is someone who likes to have a trouble-free and settled life.  If something comes up, such as a big event or a little out of the ordinary, then I start to stress.  I dislike changes, for that reason, things like moving to a new house is something that will cause me a lot of stress.   I remember how much I detested starting a new school when I was younger.  I have moved about 5 times in my life, due to unavoidable circumstances in my life.  However, now I feel very happy where I reside now and I am planning on living here for a long time. 

I am currently self-employed.  There are several things I like about being self-employed, like being my own boss, choosing my hours, I have nobody to answer or to report to and the overall freedom it provides me.  However, sometimes I stress that the business will go bad and I often feel I don’t have the security of a regular job.  How will I pay for my home mortgage? How will I pay my auto loan? How will I support my family?  These are all the things that kept me from sleeping many nights. 

To keep me from worrying about all these issues, I built up a back up fund in my bank savings account.  When my business is doing well, I put as much money as I can into this account.  Then I can use this money when things go bad.  Doing this have given me a peace of mind and because of it I do not have to worry too much.  Business income will go through fluctuating periods and this way I cope easier when it goes slow. 

Another thing that worried me a lot was the thought of how I would pay for my tax bill at the end of the year.   This worrying got worse as it got closer to tax due time.  But now I have started to save money every month to make up for the taxes so that I won’t have to worry about it when I have to pay for it. 

There are many different causes of stress, but the most important thing to understand is that you have to work on fixing it. What I do now is to try and think about all my worries in a logical manner and instead of losing sleep over them, I work on finding a solution to fix every problem.

I even have my own motto now, which is ‘no matter how big a problem is, it will get fixed’.  I always try to make this happen in real life.  In other words, instead of thinking of your worries as a problem, rather, think of how you can fix them. 

Sometimes I would feel stressed, for some reason, the day after I would go out drinking.  Often, I would also feel tired and my mind would start playing tricks on me.  Perhaps this happens because I’m getting older.  This would make me feel negative about the future and would worry me about many other issues.  It now takes me about 2 days to recover from a boozy night out and even affects my family and work life.  Now I have decided to go out much less and when I do, I will not drink too much. 

The following are among other things that will contribute to my stress causes.  You may find that some or many of these causes of stress are the same as yours: 

ü  Working too hard 

ü  Lack of sleep 

ü  During and after I suffer from an illness 

ü  The afterwards of an argument with my spouse 

ü  Getting invited or going to a social occasion which I don’t want to go, like a wedding 

ü  Every time we have visit, especially if they’re staying for more than a day 

ü  When I see someone I haven’t seen for a long time 

ü  Financial Debt

ü  Going on holiday 

Some of the causes of stress I experience may be a little bizarre to some people, but I am trying to be truthful.  It may sound strange to you, but going on holiday does make me worry.  I don’t like flying to begin with because I worry that I or someone in my family will get ill or that the hotel might not be as good as how it was described in the brochure.  The exemption to this is if I go to a relaxed place, like a beach where I will be less likely to worry about problems. 

One thing I now make sure of doing is getting enough sleep.  I have to say that now I love going to bed and I love sleeping.  This is not happening before.  I used to fall into the same trap of working late every night and then I would stay up late watching tv.   I would set the alarm clock for me to wake up early and then I would start the whole process again. 

One time, as I was reading a book about stress management, I learned that sleep was one of the best types of stress relief.  After discovering this, I decided to give it a try and I must tell you that it works really great.  I now found out how many hours I need to sleep without someone or something waking me up.  I usually need about 7 to 9 hours of sleep and so make sure I go to bed at that amount of time before I have to wake up.  This is the best time for you to know if you’re rested for sure.  Of course, before you go to bed, make sure you are worry free so that you can actually sleep.  A good trick is to try to complete as many tasks as possible before you go to bed and anything you can’t complete, think that you will indeed complete it tomorrow.  This way you won’t have many worries and you can actually fall asleep. 

I am also now trying to take life one step at a time.  Whatever happens will happen and I will deal with every single challenge on its own merit.  I attempt to deal with potential problems in an optimistic way and realize that if everything in life was smooth and easy, that it would be very boring. 

Now I try to appreciate everything I have in life and instead of picturing a future full of dread, I look forward to what life will bring me later on.  I understand that life is not always easy and it will be hard at times, but I am very determined to get through these bad periods as quick as I can.  The most important thing is to find what makes us happy and try to concentrate on doing just that.