Understanding and Managing Stressors

Of course, you already know what stress is and have probably experienced it today, or yesterday, or at any point in the past year. But do you know what the difference is between "stress" and "stressors?" 

Stressors are situations that are experienced as a perceived threat to one’s well-being or position in life, especially if the challenge of dealing with it exceeds a person’s perceived available resources.

When one encounters stressors, the body’s stress response is triggered, and a series of physiological changes take place to allow the person to fight or run. If this sounds like stress, it's because sometimes when people talk about ‘stress’ in their life, they are really talking about stressors; stressors lead to the body’s stress response and the experience of stress. 

The important thing to remember is that stressors are the cause of stress.

What Situations Become Stressors?

What situations are stressors? That can vary from person to person. While some things tend to stress many people—job demands, relationship conflicts, a hectic schedule—not every potential stressor causes stress for everyone.

Sometimes these differences can go unnoticed—it may not occur to you that a trip to the mall can be a stressor, but to someone who hates crowds and shopping, an afternoon at the mall can be a significant stressor. 

Even someone who enjoys shopping, but has an introverted nature can become stressed by a long shopping trip that would be an enjoyable or even exhilarating experience for someone who is a strong extrovert. You may even be one of those people who hates crowds and comes home from a shopping trip not fully realizing why you feel stressed.

Other times, you can notice and even change whether something hits you as a stressor or as a simple experience in your day. You can choose to look at things differently, a technique that is known by psychologists as cognitive reappraisal, and you can empower yourself by becoming more aware of what you can control in the situation, and you can build up your resilience to stress so that fewer things are experienced as stressors. Or you can work to eliminate the stressors in your life that can be avoided.

Managing the Stressors In Your Life

While it would be impractical to eliminate all stress (and because certain types of stress, such as eustress, are actually good for you, you wouldn't want to, anyway), it is important to be able to minimize stressors in your life and deal with the stress that you do experience—what’s known as stress management.

An important first step is to begin thinking of stress as something that you can and should learn to manage, just as you'd take any other problem head-on. For now, here are some targeted resources for managing the stress from specific stressors:

Begin managing your stressors today by identifying the things that cause you stress in "real-time," that is, become aware of how you feel throughout the day by paying attention to your body as well as your mind.

If there's something that you dread in your life, begin to think why, troubleshoot what you can, and develop habits to build resilience when you can't arrange things as you'd prefer them. Ultimately, if you're able to minimize your stress even a little bit it's a good thing.