So what causes people to be stressed? For every person, that answer can be different. One person may see an item as a being a disstressor, whilst another person may see the same item as being a eustressor.
For some individuals, they may experiences stressors differently than others due to differences in the abilities of someone’s neurological profile. A term given to this difference is neurodiversity. https://geniuswithin.org/information/ And these individuals may perceive different environmental conditions as being stressful compared to individuals who are neurotypical. These individuals may need to be trained/coached differently in the areas of memory retention, time management, organization, or stress management, which are all ways to reduce stress (more on that throughout the semester).
Here are a few articles for you to read on the causes of stress. Each one provides slightly different information, but you'll start to see trends in the causes of stress once you read at lease three of these articles:
Click Here for the Mayo Clinic article on stress triggers
Click Here for the Web MD article on the causes of stress
Click Here for additional information from Web MD on the causes of stress
Click Here for another reference on the causes of stress
Another type of stress includes exercise (itself) as a physical stressor. It raises heart rate, blood pressure, breathing rate, and sweat rate. It can be a eustressor if you do enough (to elicit positive changes in the body), but it can also be a disstressor if you do too much exercise (overtraining).
One type of stressor that is not mentioned in these articles, and something a few of you should think about, are chemical stressors:
Click Here for a short section on chemical stressors
Included in this article is information about Nicotine. Some smokers believe that smoking relaxes you. When in actuality, it causes more stress because your body can't and won't function well without it. When a smoker "takes a hit" from a cigarette, he or she may feel more relaxed because your brain was stressed without the presence of nicotine... Click Here for short article on nicotine and stress
Long Term Stress
A person's body, if under stress for a longer period of time, will start to undergo several changes. For these shorter term affects of stress, go to the following website and scroll down to the "Signs and symptoms of stress overload" section... Click Here for the Signs of Stress article. Also in this article are two other sections that I want you to read.
First is the section on "How much stress is too much?" (not everybody is affected the same way by the same level of stress and these are reasons why that happens). Included in this reasoning are possible personality traits that can lend to a person being more relaxed (Type B) or bringing more stress into his/her life (Type A). Click Here for an article on personality traits and stress as well as Click Here to see if you have a good deal of these traits that might lead to more stress.
And second, is the section on "Effects of chronic stress" or what type of toll will stress have on a person's body if he/she doesn't try to reduce their stress levels. Also, view this article on the effect of chronic stress on the body: Click Here for a second article on the affects of chronic stress on the body
As part of the body's reaction to stress, cortisol is released. This hormone serves a purpose (part of the fight or flight response), but if a person stays stressed for longer periods of time, the hormone sticks around and will reduce a person's health... Click Here for cortisol and stress article
For a nice summary of what Stress does to your brain, watch this 4 minute video: