Dealing with stress – why is it so hard?

We all know what it feels like to be under pressure.

This is something we all experience in our daily lives, but when we begin to feel overwhelmed and the pressure grows, stress starts to take over.

People react to stress in many different ways. It can make you lose your temper, feel anxious, suffer from low self-esteem, experience racing thoughts, or behave unreasonably.

So, why do we get stressed and why can it be so difficult to handle?

The feeling of being stressed is triggered by the fight or flight response (fellow psychology students will know what I am talking about here). Essentially, it is your body’s reaction to help you cope with pressures or threats.

Our bodies create more adrenaline, norepinephrine, and cortisol (stress hormones) which act as motivators in challenging situations. This causes reactions like increased blood pressure, sweating, and alertness.

When you have too many stressors (I’ll expand on this below) or this response is triggered too easily, it can make it difficult for you to cope and can be harmful.

Recognising your stressors – triggers

It can be really difficult to pinpoint the cause of your stress, particularly if you are like me and are studying at university, working part-time, and also have the normal worries of a 19-year-old girl.

Life can be really busy, and before you know it, you feel the stress building up and don’t know what to do next.

In order to be able to deal with this feeling, it’s important to identify what the initial cause was. This will help to outline any patterns in the way you react to that trigger and work to improve it.

As I said, this isn’t always easy. If you struggle with recognising your stressors, you can try to keep a note of when you feel stressed – what you were doing, who you were with, and what you were thinking.

Once you know the reason why you feel stressed, you can try to reduce, eliminate, or change the way you look at the stressor. For example, if you have a friend that is a trigger, you can limit how much time you spend with them, change the way you let the situation affect you, or even cut contact completely if that is what’s best for you.

In other instances, it’s not as simple as removing the stressor from your life. Take your job for example. Of course, you can quit but most of the time that’s not the answer. Instead, change the way you look at the thing that is causing the stress so that it becomes less intimidating. A couple of ways of doing this are time-management and prioritising.

Managing stress

The feeling of being stressed is very different from what is causing it, so equally, the solutions to both are very different too.

No matter how efficiently you can minimise your stressors, there will still be times where the pressure feels like it’s too much. This where learning how to manage your stress is important.

By noticing early signs of stress, you can prevent it from escalating further and avoid adopting unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Emotional responses can include anger, lack of concentration, insecurity, burnout, forgetfulness, sadness, irritability, and restlessness.

Physical responses to stress include headaches, muscle tension, and dizziness.

And behavioural reactions include: angry outbursts, abusing drugs and alcohol, social withdrawal, eating more or less, and crying.

When I start to notice these signs of stress, I try to manage it by exercising, reading a book, or staying off my phone.

Some more techniques that can help manage your stress are:

- Learning what makes you relax

- Planning ahead

- Deep breathing

- Mindfulness

- Listening to music or podcasts

- Taking a break from the thing causing stress

- Slowing down

- Talking to friends and family

Everyone will have different ways to cope with feeling stressed but eating well, getting enough sleep, relieving pressure from yourself, and making time for hobbies that feel rewarding will help your stress in the long term.