Why Stress?

Date: 25th of March, 2022. 

TGIFriday! I'm shouting like I had any plans lol. Today, I had a deadline to complete something. I have a teammate but she wasn't available and I had to do the work (she covers for me too, so it's good). Where the problem came was that she understood the task better than I did because it was explained to her so I was a bit overwhelmed lol. I still did my best sha. My boss was to take a look at it at the end of the day but he was busy and I was so happy because it gives me the weekend to tidy up my document.

Anyway, how are you all doing really? How had the week been? Any struggles? Any high points? You can let me know in the comments if you're willing to share. For me, I was exhausted a lot this week. I didn't realise it at first until yesterday. I tried to write my article yesterday and I kept sleeping off, it took me two hours to finish writing, I had to stand up at a point. It was like my body was crashing and needed to rest. This morning, it was also a struggle to wake up. I'm not a morning person but I do wake up before my alarm but today it was different. After the alarm rang, I kept snoozing until my mum woke me up (God bless her). If not for her, I would have been late. I have also had troubles sleeping before midnight in the past week too.

Throughout the day, I couldn't really focus, both yesterday and today. It was taking me a while to grasp simple things or understand what someone was saying to me. It was obvious that I was stressed. Now, this is not the first time that I've felt this way but I tend to just complain about it and not do anything. So today, I will be Identifying the possible causes of stress and maybe if we know the causes, we can avoid it.

There are different reasons why we vmget stressed and these will be broken down into

— Work

— Finance

— Personal

— Relationship

— School

1. WORK STRESS

A workplace is where most people spend most hours of their day. Either that or they spend a lot of hours going to work, being at work and returning from work. When the working environment doesn't work for you, you may find yourself stressed. Reasons why one might be stressed at work includes:

• Having bad superiors: If you work in a place where your superiors treat you like they are doing you a fabour by paying you for a job you've done or if they are rude, disrespectful without a care about your personal wellbeing and your mental health, you bmay start to resent them, probably fear them and dislike them. Working in such environment will cause someone stress.

• Too much responsibilities: There are some workplaces that give people a lot of tasks to do especially with crazy deadlines. Being in this situation continuously with lead to burn out. Having a lot to do can cause your brain to be working overtime to ensure that things get done on time and well.

• Presentation: A lot of people (like me) are quite shy and do not like to be the centre of attention while there are others who always have stage fright. Having to make a presentation or give a speech in front of colleagues can be stressful. What I do here is that I just remind myself to breath and I take deep breaths till I'm calm.

2. FINANCIAL STRESS

One common challenge with most adults or young adults in life is money. Even those who are rich still struggle to keep making money to maintain a lifestyle, avoiding being duped, even going bankrupt etc. Causes of financial stress for those who are not wealthy include struggling to provide, worrying about debts etc. These things can cause a lot of stress. Signs of financial stress include:

• Guilt: This comes with feeling bad after making a purchase that may not be considered a need.

• Anxiety: This follows the worry about one's source of income. Where the money will come from, how they will take care of their bills, having to take loans, struggling to pay back those loans etc.

• Chaos: This can come when the issue of money is being raised especially with one partner. It could be about the inability to provide/support financially, arguing about what is an uneccessary expense etc.

1. PERSONAL STRESS

There are so many things that one may be going through that can cause them a lot of stress and they include:

• The death of a loved one

• Job loss

• Falling sick

• Going through a divorce

• Experiencing a traumatic event

• Taking care of a dependent

• Household chores

• Moving to a new location

There are also some things which are supposedly positive but can also cause some stress like

• Planning a wedding

• Organising a birthday

• Hosting family/friends

• Travelling

1. RELATIONSHIP STRESS

All relationships encounter problems from time to deal. While some people are able to deal with it, some cannot because it is more than they can handle. When someone sees their deal breakers, it causes a lot of stress. Some of these stressors include:

• Intimacy: When one or both couples starts getting too busy for the other, this may result in a lack of intimacy and the couples start to lose their connection. It is at this point that they start to miss out on each others milestones and the lack of intimacy/availability can cause a strain on the relationship.

• Abuse: When there is any form of abuse (whether physical, emotional or verbal) from any of the partners, it makes the other person constantly anxious and living in fear

• Communication: Just like with intimacy, lack of communication is a relationship killer and a major stressor especially when one person longs for the communication and another person is not providing it or considering it a priority. It is stressful to always wonder what the other person is done, if they are safe, what is going on in their lives etc.

• Principles: When one doesn't share the same principles or beliefs with their partner, there will always be the struggle of who will have to compromise for whom and who will be giving up on their core beliefs for the other

• Break up: This is a definite stressor especially if you still have feelings for the person or were hurt by them.

1. SCHOOL STRESS

For school, there are several issues that a lob of students face and they include:

• Exams

• Deadlines

• Accommodation problems

• Money

• Roommates

Thanks for reading! Do you have any of these stressors?