Mental health

5 top stress triggers: understanding stress and how to cope with it

By Dr. Stephen Ruppenthal
www.directawakening.com

Nobody likes stress. Whether it's a blow that lands when you're least prepared or just the wear and tear we feel when the boss is sore or our partner is cross, stress is like a rotorooter that grinds up vitality. It could be just that the day is cloudy when we were hoping for sunshine, or our partner is short with us when we were hoping for praise. Stress really isn't in what happens, but in how we react to it. This gives us a good way to beat it: for if know our stress triggers and prepare as best we can, we are standing up to stress before it gets to us. As Hamlet says, "The readiness is all." So let's be on the lookout for these five likely stress triggers as winter keeps us pretty holed up:

1. Finances: Stress typically mounts in the winter months. Even if you are not faced with escalating mortgage payments, a disappointing paycheck, or a failed investment, bills go up with the cold. So if you can, put aside a special reserve of cash now to help weather unforeseen emergencies during the winter. That way, if a surprise sneaks up, you will be less jolted and less stressed.
2. Health: Stress expert Dr. Hans Selye said that one stressful reaction to an event is one hundredth of a heart attack. Say we are in a relationship in which we grate against our partner all day long; no one gets outright angry, but the underlying, underground disharmony continually wreaks inner havoc. Or it may be at our job, where we hold our opinions to ourselves in very adverse conditions. Instead of letting stress build up in such tense situations, now is the time to take a fearless inventory of all the things that bother you pretty much all the time. Try free writing for a few days, and you'll uncover stress triggers that will surely come up. Then write down how you would most wish to respond to them—and don't hold back. This will prepare you and lessen any stress.
3. Family: Personal discord is a prime cause of stress. As the weather stays cold, we're in closer proximity with each other than we may be used to. Arguments require a shorter fuse to ignite. But you can avoid this victimizing pattern; for even in the cold, nature has a support that can help sustain us. Beat the stress by taking a breather for bracing walks, runs, or jogs anytime you can. Vigorous movement of the body will make you less prey to closed-in conditions. When you return, the mounting frustration will be cut off and the good side of your family will loom large.
4. Weather: When it pours like it's never going to stop, or you get snowed in or battered by harsh winds, you feel the primordial stress of worry for personal survival. Even if it is not a Katrina-style emergency but just sloppy and cold, be as ready as you can for the unpredictable, which the weather will with certainty bring. In previous generations, people just spent more time within themselves in a darkness unilluminated by electricity. I believe that a practice of daily meditation on positive feelings and truths will best heighten awareness and help inure you to adversity.
5. Loneliness: We may not be aware of it, but in most of us, there is still the child that wants to be feted with gifts or compliments and bathed in human warmth. For those who feel alienated or are without that special someone, winter can be an especially painful time. That automatic closeness around the fire with family or friends just doesn't happen. Nothing can be as desperately alienating as feeling more intensely alone at a time we're supposed to have warmth and closeness. Don't let yourself be the prisoner of such cratering expectations. If you can sing, join a choir that performs works for all seasons, or act in a play. Call up that person who themselves may feel left out. When you are there for someone else, you'll also be there for deep, unspoken needs in yourself. So this year, instead of leaving an opening for stress and personal friction, use this time of cold, rainy or snowy weather to beat stress. This is the way both to a calm happiness within yourself and to enrich the lives of those you love.