What Causes Stress?

What causes stress in your life is different from what causes it in anyone else’s. What someone deems as a catastrophic event may be a minor setback for another. Learning what adds stress to your life is key to controlling your stress levels.

Fears Cause Stress

Some physical fears that can cause stress are:

• Dangerous traffic on your morning commute
• A crowded elevator in your office building
• A dark, deserted parking garage
• Losing your child in the grocery store

Psychological fears associated with stress include:

•Inability to complete tasks at home or work
• Inability to manage your finances
• Legal problems
• Inability to support your partner or family

Uncertainty Causes Stress

In each person’s life there are uncertainties that can cause stress. Changing jobs, moving to a new city, starting or ending a relationship -- these are just some of the changes that can cause uncertainty in one’s life. Often, when change occurs stress can pile up because of all the “unknowns” in a given situation.

Life is always filled with uncertainty. It is discomforting not to know what is going to happen, particularly if your control of the situation is impeded by:

• Government policy
• Market fluctuations
• Illness
• Interest rates
• Accidents

Being uncertain about events in your life can cause you to feel like you’re out of control. This feeling of a loss of control is what causes stress.

Attitudes Cause Stress

A positive or negative attitude influences a person’s reaction to stressful situations. For example, if you feel your job is worthwhile you may see some of the problems you encounter as challenges. Seen as pluses, the problems or potential problems become motivators. However, if you resent your situation or feel “stuck” in your job, similar experiences create stress, a stress that frustrates instead of motivating you.

Perceptions Cause Stress

Depending on what has happened to you in the past and how you view the resources available to you to meet life’s demands your stress levels will be affected. The degree of stress that you experience can be greatly affected by your perception of your ability to deal with it. How you perceive any given situation will determine whether or not it is going to be stressful.

Perception can be broken down in the following ways:

• Self: sense of competency, self-esteem, values, interests, needs
• Personal resources: past experiences, health
• Material resources: finances, equipment, storage
• People resources: others who can assist you (friends, coworkers, family members, professionals)

Change Causes Stress

All change produces stress, even positive changes. Marriage is a positive change that requires a period of adjustment. For some people, this adjustment can be stressful. A vacation may also be stressful. The travel arrangements have to be made and you have to plan to be out of work. You might also worry about all of the activities you want to complete while on your trip. So even exciting events can cause stress.

Negative changes are not as difficult to identify as stress-producing. These are situations that you’d rather not occur, such as children leaving home to start careers, economic recession causing financial crisis, or loss of a valuable possession.

Change demands your adjustment to the particular situation, whether you desire the change or not. Developmental changes that you are able to plan for— pregnancy and birth, children growing up, the aging process—may still be stressful even though anticipated.

The following are more examples of stress-causing changes:

• Work/business change due to technological advancement
• Major change in responsibility or work load due to shift in partnership
• Increasing skills to increase efficiency
• Personal Illness or injury
• Personal achievement or disappointment
• Retirement
• Illness or death of close friend or family member
• Beginning or ending of formal education
• Change in social activities or involvement in community service
• Major change in financial state
• Major purchase (home, equipment, land)
• Additional family expenses (education, insurance, illness)

Source: National Institute of Health (NIH)
Last Modified: 2005