Coping With Life's Threats

Do you ever feel stressed?

Stress affects us all. Sometimes we have just a little stress. At other times we may have major, long-term stress. Some stress has a positive impact, but excessive or long-term stress can contribute to serious health problems.

Stress is usually caused by how we react to the people, events, and changes in our lives. We are living in a time of rapid technological, scientific, social, economic, and political change. We often don't know how to cope. Learning effective stress management skills may be one of the most important things you can do for your health.

What Is Stress?

Stress is your body's natural way of defending itself from threats. Those threats may be real or imagined, physical or mental. Whenever you feel threatened, your body becomes keyed up to fight off or run away from the threat. Your brain triggers the release of several "stress hormones"—such as cortisol and adrenaline—which give you the extra strength you need to fight or run away from the threat.

This body response is most helpful when threats are real or physical. We need the stress response to help us cope with real emergencies. The energy from stress also can help us be more productive if we channel that energy into positive activities.

Most threats today, however, are more mental than physical. We often feel unable or unwilling to take action. Sometimes we just have more stress than we can handle. To make matters worse, we may never have learned the skills we need to relax and unwind from the effects of a day's stress.

That's when stress becomes a threat to our health. It's like running a machine at full speed all day every day, without any service breaks. The excess wear and tear caused by constantly running a machine—or our bodies—at top speed can quickly lead to break-down or illness.

If you feel threatened all the time, and you haven't learned how to cope, you may have chronic stress. Chronic (or constant) stress can weaken your body's immune system, leading to frequent illness. Chemical changes in your body caused by the stress response can contribute to ulcers or colitis. Chronic stress may lead to chronically high blood pressure, called "hypertension"—a leading cause of heart disease.

Symptoms of stress may include cold hands and feet, frequent headaches, nervousness and muscle tension. When you're under stress you may also notice you're eating more, getting angry more often, or smoking or drinking more.

What Causes Stress?

We actually cause most of our own stress!

We create stress for ourselves by the way we think about the people, events and issues in our lives. It is often our perception of events—rather than the events themselves—which causes most of our stress. If we think something or someone is threatening, we will have a stress response.

For example, you may remember a time when a police car pulled up behind you with its lights flashing. Even if the police car passed you and went on to stop someone else, you probably felt some degree of stress.

It's really good news that we cause most of our own stress. It means we have the power within us to correct or manage most of the problems!

If we learn to see new situations and changes in our lives as positive opportunities or challenges, we can greatly reduce our stress. People who are successful at managing stress are not afraid of change. They see change as a source for growth and creativity.

If we can cause much of our stress by the way we think, then we can also prevent a great deal of stress by learning to think positively. If you're filled with fear, anger or hatred, that's what will come out of you when you're stressed. If you want a better response when you're under stress, you need to practice filling your mind with positive thoughts, love, and a sense of adventure.

What You Can Do

•  Build resistance to stress by healthy eating and getting adequate physical activity.
•  Unwind from your stress by learning and practicing relaxation skills.
•  Learn how to fight the causes of stress with good communication, planning, and time management skills.
•  Visit our "Tips For Managing Your Stress" page for more information about coping skills.
•  Take a short quiz: "How Well Do You Manage Stress?"