StressLess Body Therapy: Causes of Stress

According to Webster's dictionary, one definition of stress is, "a state of bodily or mental tension resulting from factors that tend to alter an existent equilibrium." So what does that mean? It means that something happens that causes a change in your body and mind. This change can be good or bad. So change causes stress, or is it a person's reaction to change that causes stress?

We all need some stress in our life. It is a motivator to get our needs met. We feel the stress of a hungry stomach, so we go to work, to earn the money, to pay for our groceries. When we begin to have too many demands and pressures our normal state of being is disturbed and we begin to feel "stressed." What varies from person to person is how many demands we can handle and what we consider our normal state of being. These are factors of an individual's personality.

Even though people react to situations differently, we can identify some areas of life that are a cause of stress (or distress). The most obvious causes are due to environmental factors, life changing events, and social pressures. Additional causes are changes to the body and a person's mind or thoughts.

Change is a guarantee and how we react to it is the only thing we have control over. Actually if you look at all of the above situations, you will see that if you change your reaction to the cause of stress (traffic, divorce, debt, aging, etc.) then your perception of the stress in your life changes.

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