The hidden triggers of stress

Since the concept of stress was incorporated, it has been widely studied by different disciplines, including of course Psychology.

Mainly, when trying to understand stress, our gaze has been on the changes that occur in human beings, apparently caused by foci extrinsic to the individual, that is, elements that are in the environment and that generate this response that ends up unbalanced physical harmony and emotional.

From a different perspective, the American psychiatrist David R. Hawkins affirms that what can really be stressful for some, is not so for others, since stress emerges from internal factors that operate in the subjects, what the individuals hold in their minds; therefore, it is not possible to flee from it. But what are those internal determinants? How do they operate? And how should this problem be tackled if it is not caused by external factors?

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Knowing stress and its triggers

Stress is not characterized as a negative response, since it fulfills an adaptive and survival function.

However, according to Lazarus in 1966, if the individual has the perception that personal resources are insufficient to successfully face a situation, there may be a non-positive assessment of the stimulus, resulting in physical and emotional manifestations, such as muscle pain in the neck or back, headaches, digestive discomfort, sleep abnormalities, anxious or depressive symptoms, among others, and depending on the chronicity of stress, trigger diseases.

The human mind

The human mind can be represented as an iceberg. The part that floats on the water is what people are aware of, what they can make visible of their subjective world. However, there is a much larger portion of your interiority, which has a great influence on how you feel and act, and that in this metaphor is represented by everything that is under the surface; this would be the unconscious.

The unconscious dimension of human experience houses an enormous accumulation of information about others and oneself., which is put into play at every moment of interaction. In this realm there is a collection of emotions, feelings, belief systems and memories that silently influence the way of feeling and being in the world.

The role of beliefs and positions

It is not strange to observe that different individuals react differently to the same situation, there are those who listen to a certain type of music feeling calm and well-being, while others just want the sound to be stop; a highly complex intellectual work that for some may be scary, for others it may represent an exhilarating challenge. The list of examples is extensive.

These individual distinctions respond to those positions that are taken and to the belief systems that are operating, either consciously or unconsciously: “that music does not I like it ”,“ classical music is relaxing ”,“ I am not capable enough to achieve it ”,“ my boss does not value me ”,“ I am good at this ”,“ boring people stay at home a Saturday night ”,“ I must be productive, otherwise it will be a wasted day ”,“ old age is not attractive ”,“ I cannot be alone ”,“ at my age I should have achieved this by now ”,“ I am not enough ” ...

All these ideas, and many others, were inserted into the innocent mind of people from culture and society, and also as a consequence of upbringing, and they speak more about themselves than about the particular situation or stimulus, since they are human beings who provide it with a certain meaning or interpretation, conditioning its reaction to they.

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The role of emotions and feelings

Having already understood the relevance of thoughts and beliefs, it is essential to connect these notions with those of feelings and emotions, since they have the helm of the mind.

Each feeling corresponds to a condensation of a large number of thoughts, being repressed and suppressed even during the entire life cycle, since the human being has an important tendency to try to flee from what feel. However, all this accumulated psychic energy looks for unhealthy ways to express themselves, emerging through psychological illnesses, and also expressing itself bodily, through some psychosomatic illness or physical illness.

These sensations come to be expressed in a way that produces an imbalance, because each individual manages what he feels through certain mechanisms that allow them to continue working without having to directly face their emotions and feelings, within them the best known are repression, suppression, expression escape.

In suppression and repression, emotions and feelings are set aside, selected according to socialization. In repression, this happens unconsciously, and within the mechanisms most used to carry out In carrying out this task, negation and projection are found, while suppression occurs in a similar way. aware.

The pressure of suppressed emotions is expressed as mood swings, irritability, tension in the muscles of the neck and back, headaches, cramps, menstrual disorders, colitis, indigestion, insomnia, hypertension, allergies, and other conditions somatic.

As for the expression, what happens is that emotional experience is externalized through language and / or the body. However, this strategy only allows a sufficient amount of pressure to be relieved so that the rest of the energy can still be removed. In addition, this type of mechanism results in the sensation being amplified.

In relation to the escape it is related with the avoidance of emotions through entertainment. People's fear of facing themselves leads them to absorb various avoidance activities such as social networks Social, television programs, constant internet browsing, video games, food, drugs and / or alcohol, among others behaviors.

About this, David Hawkins points out that the optimal state of the human being is characterized by happiness, satisfaction, peace and joy; Nevertheless, These states are obscured by clouds of pent-up and accumulated negative emotions., which generate a specific kind of perception of the world.

For example, someone who maintains a high level of internal anger and resentment will tend to see hostility and belligerence in others and situations, generating in turn thoughts of attack, injustice and revenge, while that person who is dominated by the fear, he will observe a frightening and dangerous world, producing the emergence of thoughts of vulnerability, tragedy, helplessness, among others. So it is with each negative emotion that covers as a veil the possibility of individuals to see reality.

Stress relief

By turning the problem of stress into the internal space of human beings, it becomes evident that the response in relation to their relief should not be sought in the stimuli that the world provides, but in a personal work associated with the emotional dimension that allows releasing the accumulated pressure of repressed emotions and feelings, as well as dismantling those systems that limit and promote the emergence of these negative emotions. Since what physically and psychologically unbalanced the subjects is what they hold in their mind.

Final comments

As we have seen, stress is the consequence of hidden triggers within the same individual, the suppressed emotions found in the mind, and the associated belief systems. Which implies a personal vulnerability to a stress response to certain stimuli, which will be conditioned by factors that often influence unconsciously.

Thus, the way in which these processes operate implies a great wear and tear due to the enormous amounts of energy that are used to sustain these mechanisms and keep in the unconscious everything that is being repressed and suppressed, which generates a stagnation in the processes of personal growth, and the emergence of physical and mental.

In conclusion, since the cause of stress is not external, it is understandable that the best approach strategy is to focus on the world interior of the people, since in this way a work can be carried out that contributes to modify the beliefs and related judgments to what is outside and inside, as well as to get rid of suppressed emotions, achieving that stress can be eliminated and warned.