The Causes of Stress

There are many things that are the causes of stress but some are harder to identify than others.

The not-so-obvious reasons which cause stress include daily routine, over-thinking and procrastination.

The more obvious stress causes are work, environment, people, busy schedule and negative emotions.

The main reason for all stress

Although there are many causes of stress, there is only one main happening that produces it. It is called pushing against or resistance, in other words.

Even if there might be potential causes of stress, they will not affect you unless you push against them.

Whenever you push against unsatisfactory condition, whenever you disagree with someone, whenever you struggle, you will always produce stress.

This happens because you are projecting your negative energy to something, and as a result you get the negative energy back. This hurts you and produces negative results. Therefore you start feeling stressed.

Signs that you are stressed

It is easy to spot a stressed person. Whenever you jump because of some minor distraction or you constantly have a headache, it means you have stress.

If you are mean to people although you do not intend that, it also indicates that you are suffering from stress.

When you undertake some task and do not have enough energy to finish it or when the quality of a completed task is poor, it again means that you are stressed out.

The causes of stress

Here are the potential causes of stress (if you decide to push against them). I have also explained how to overcome each of them:

Over-thinking things – when you analyse some situation for too long, it makes you feel disempowered because you keep putting the energy of doubt into it. This in turn produces stress.

Next time when you notice that you over-analyse things you should stop straight away and direct your attention to something completely different.

When you feel positive and empowered you should go back to the unsolved situation and you will notice how easy it is to think it over and find solutions with a positive state of mind. This way you will not produce any kind of stress.

Procrastination – not many understand that procrastination is a form of pushing against. Procrastination of something means that you do not want to accomplish that work at the moment. And that means that you should not accomplish it. If you procrastinate, your intuition tells you that you are not ready for that task.

So you should leave it until you feel that you can accomplish it with a positive mind. Otherwise if you unwillingly start some task, it will never be accomplished in a successful manner, because you will only give the energy of boredom, doubt and hopelessness to it.

You should never feel guilty for procrastination. Guilt is another cause of stress. You should avoid this kind of emotion at all costs. Guilt also produces other negative consequences such as diseases.

Simply know that if you start procrastinating something, it means you are not ready for it and just forget about it for a while.

Arguments – having an argument with someone can instantly produce stress. Although that might seem unfair to some, you should avoid arguments. That will be a much wiser thing to do rather than suffer the consequences of an argument.

When someone disagrees with you, let them. Nothing will change if you do. They have their own opinion and you have your own. There is nothing wrong with that.

When you are treated unfairly, you can state this fact but you should not get dragged into the argument. You can simply say what is true without attacking another person.

Struggling – struggle is a great example of pushing against. Struggle uses a lot of your energy. You start feeling hopeless and negative. Such mental states are always the causes of stress.

Whenever you sense that you start struggling, you should leave that work aside and come back to it with a positive attitude. You will notice how quickly the situation can be solved because you will look at in through the different mindset.

Emotional reaction – When you react to a person or environment emotionally, that produces stress (if the reaction is negative, of course). To eliminate this negative emotion resulting from some trigger, you should not dwell on that trigger.

So if you do not like the environment you live in, focus on something else that you like. For example, if you want to live in a better place and really do not like the house you are living in now, just focus on some hobby that you have or spend some time away from your house.

That will keep your attention away from what you do not like. This way you will not get stressed out.

Boredom – although many think that boredom cannot produce stress, this is false. The feeling of boredom causes your mind to keep thinking about the situation that does not satisfy you. This produces stress.

To avoid this you should prevent reoccurring thoughts of boredom from coming up in your mind. Just be aware of them and acknowledge them when they come. When you do that, you will not longer be emotionally involved with them because you will understand that these are just your usual thoughts during the moments of boredom.

Thoughts cannot affect you negatively if you realise that you are having thoughts and you are not identifying with them.

Also you should stay in the present and observe the environment you are in, rather than thinking about it. The present moment is all you have.

Even if you feel boredom, when you stop the usual thoughts of boredom and just start seeing the reality for what it is, you will instantly feel happier. You will probably not believe in what I say until you try this yourself.

Multi-tasking – when you are lacking focus you start doing many things at the same time. That usually leads to leaving work halfway done or completing it in a mediocre way.

You should avoid multi-tasking because it takes a lot of energy from you and many activities done at the same time are the causes of stress.

It is much wiser to direct your energy into a sole work and complete it in a perfect way. That leaves enough energy to complete other tasks and you will make sure that you always get good results no matter what you do.

Environment – If you do not like your current environment it can really make you stressed.

This happens because you observe unsatisfactory environment and that produces negative emotions. These emotions are the causes of stress.

To eliminate this kind of stress you should understand that you are 100% responsible for whatever happens in you life. You cannot blame your parents, friends or colleagues for what you see. They are not responsible for your reality.

So when you realise that you are completely responsible for everything you experience, you can decide to change it. You should realise that you cannot instantly correct your past mistakes and you will have to live with them for a while.

But that is okay because you will be gradually moving to the place you want to be in.

You should also note that you cannot change your current situation if you feel negative towards it. Negativity always means that you are resisting the situation. When you resist, you put up a barrier against better conditions reaching you.

When you let go of this resistance and feel great and keep hoping that better conditions are coming, you put yourself into the alignment with the life force. That, in turn, leads you into your preferred environment.

People – People can bring out all kinds of emotions in you. It is nice when you become happier and more empowered when you talk to someone. But how can you remain positive when you need to communicate with some grumpy person?

The good news is that you can remain positive even in such situation. You should understand that that person has nothing to do with you, s/he is on a completely different path than you are. We are all responsible only for our own lives.

Therefore why would you let someone disturb your peacefulness and positivity? Only you decide if you want to let someone bring out the emotions in you. You are in complete control of everything that is about you: your emotions, your lifestyle, financial situation, living conditions – everything.

So if you meet someone negative and you keep thinking that that person is very negative and you do not like how s/he treats you, then you let that person make you feel negative.

Busy Schedule – sometimes busy times can be the causes of stress. That happens when you have many things to do or when you are unsure if you would be able to accomplish everything that needs to be done.

You should keep in mind in such case that these tasks do not mean the world to you and that you will not be very affected greatly if you are not able to accomplish everything.

If you forget to finish some project you should focus on how well you accomplished other projects, rather than keep thinking about what you have not done.

Lack of order – if your house is messy or your desk is untidy, it can stress you out. This happens because clutter in the outside world indicates clutter in your mind. To change this you can clean your house and that will make your mind clearer and eliminate your stress.

You can also clear your mind (through meditation, for example) and you will notice that you will have the urge to clean your house. This is because your surroundings always reflect your main mental state.

Health problems – even small health conditions can be the causes of stress because they may restrict your ability to accomplish some things. For example, if you are a singer but you have a sore throat, that restricts your ability to sing. Therefore that can easily cause stress.

To avoid such stress you should acknowledge your current condition for what it is. You should just let it pass otherwise if you keep resisting it, it will stay much longer with you.

Some illnesses can be really frustrating, but if you take action whilst feeling negative about your condition, that will make the situation even worse and cause you more stress.

Daily routine – sometimes even daily tasks can be the causes of stress because they are so unvarying. To eliminate stress from your daily activities you should be conscious of doing them. So when you are cleaning your house, for example, you should be in the moment.

If your mind wonders off thinking about the future of dwelling on the past, you will lose your conscious involvement in what you are doing and that will cause boredom and unhappiness to come.

Job – if you are not satisfied with your job, that can easily stress you out. I do not know any people that are satisfied with their employment for a long time. It is just not that great to work for someone else.

The way you can avoid work stress is not to get too emotionally involved with your job. You should not let anything impact you negatively, because your positivity should be the most important thing.

Conclusion

Although there are different causes of stress, they all come from the fact that you are pushing against something. It is much better avoid resisting any situation because by resisting you always get stressed out.

When you are suffering from some stress, you should identify the causes of stress. That will let you deal with these causes of stress because you will be able to understand why they occurred. When you find this out you will be able to eliminate the stress by changing your attitude or actions towards the cause.

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