Which of the following is an internal stressor?

Which of the following is an internal stressor?

Stress is a normal part of life. In fact, psychologist Richard S. Lazarus proposed the idea that all humans need a manageable amount of stress in their lives in order to develop a healthy psyche.

But when our stress response becomes prolonged, or constantly triggered, things start to become problematic... In this article, we will take a look at what causes stress and why we get it:

What is stress?

Stress is a natural human response to situations or factors which are perceived to be threatening or difficult to manage.

Stress can be caused by internal or external ‘stressors’:

  • Internal stressors include our feelings and expectations.
  • External stressors arise from the environment and events taking place around us.

A healthy stress response develops quickly when required, in proportion to the provocation, and then fades away when no longer required. When stress is triggered in this way, it can actually be helpful for our survival, and serves to enhance motivation and productivity.

What is stress for?

Today, when we talk about stress it is rarely positive. Yet it is important to understand the vital role that stress has played in our evolution.

The “fight or flight” response, also known as the “stress response” is your body's natural response to a situation where you perceive that you are in danger; your brain signals to your adrenal glands to release hormones including adrenaline (epinephrine) and noradrenaline (norepinephrine) to produce a heightened state. This state is then predominantly maintained by the release of the hormone cortisol.

A heightened state is designed to result in:

  • Increased energy levels (via increased blood sugar)
  • Heightened alertness
  • Faster breathing and respiration
  • Reduced digestive function (sometimes leading to a reduced desire to eat)
  • Dilated blood vessels
  • Faster heart rate and higher blood pressure
  • Greater blood supply to the muscles

It is easy to see how this stress response may be extremely useful if you were faced with a sabretooth tiger, for instance. Not so helpful, however, to assist you with many of the not so life threatening challenges that we face today.

What types of stress are there?

1) Acute stress Acute stress is the most common. It is usually related to events which have occurred in the recent past, or which you anticipate will happen in the near future. Examples of acute stress may include being involved in a recent altercation, or a deadline at work you are expecting.

An isolated episode of acute stress may lead to muscle tension, headaches or an upset stomach. But if you regularly experience acute stress, things can quickly become much more serious...

2) Episodic acute stress If you regularly experience episodes of acute stress, this is known as episodic acute stress. The causes of episodic acute stress may be internal or external stressors: For example, you may have a job or life which regularly throws threatening or stressful situations at you (external). Or you may perceive yourself as having insufficient time or energy to handle recent or upcoming events (internal).

For some of us experiencing this type of stress, it can become a serious threat to our health in the form of high blood pressure or heart disease.

3) Chronic stress Chronic stress occurs when we experience long-term, ongoing stress. This is usually the kind of stress we feel we cannot escape from. It may be caused by an early-life traumatic event. Or it may arise later in life, following an event we perceive to be life-threatening. This kind of stress includes PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) as experienced by soldiers and other survivors of combat, disasters, serious accidents or physical and emotional abuse.

Chronic stress is so powerful that it can permanently alter our personality, leading to heart attacks, strokes, and even episodes of violence and suicide attempts.

Which of the following is an internal stressor?

What are the causes of stress?

The causes of anxiety, pain and suffering associated with stress can be placed into two categories:

1) External causes of stress External causes of stress are relatively easy for us to understand. This is because most of us find ourselves facing this kind of situation every day.
External stressors can include:

  • Relationship problems
  • Moving house
  • Commuting or sitting in traffic
  • Serious injury or chronic illness
  • Dramatic changes in your life
  • Marriage or divorce
  • Financial stresses
  • Family bereavement
  • A huge number of situations relating to work

The last stressor on this list; work stress, is such a significant contributor to our overall levels of stress that it deserves further exploration.

What causes stress at work?

Work is one of the most common causes of our stress. It occupies such a significant proportion of our time that stress can arise from a number of different situations, including work that:

  • Is dangerous
  • Is in a high-pressure environment
  • Involves long hours, lots of deadlines or a heavy workload
  • Is lacking in a sense of control in the work decision making process
  • Places unclear expectations on us
  • Places increasing, especially unfair, demands on our time
  • Is irregular or insecure
  • Includes bullying or harassment in the workplace
  • Has just been lost

2) Internal causes of stress External stressors are caused by situations that arise outside of us, and outside of our control. You can't prevent your boss from firing you, or demanding that you come in for extra hours at the weekend.

Internal stressors, however, come from within you. These stressors might be related to:

  • Your perception of events
  • Your expectations
  • Your standards
  • Your desires
  • Measuring yourself against situations or others
  • Your personal goals

Further to this, internal stressors within you can exacerbate any external stressors that arise. For example, if we are already struggling with high personal expectations and standards which we are not always able to meet, we may have our stress levels sent through the roof by a late-running train, or unexpected traffic jam.
If we are not suffering from internal stressors, the resulting stress from these situations may be quite manageable.

Which of the following is an internal stressor?

Dealing with stress

When it comes to dealing with stress, it is best to focus on the things that we can control. This means targeting our internal stressors, in order to reduce the impact they can have on any external stressors that are occurring in our lives.

Reducing the way we cope with internal stressors is not an easy process but here are some stress relieving strategies that can help:

1. Concentrate on solutions rather than problems: Focussing on how insurmountable a problem is will almost always make you feel worse. Instead, concentrate on solutions to the problem rather than the challenges themselves.

2. Keep a positive state of mind: The more negative you are, the more negative everything seems to be. How we perceive the world around us dictates how we feel and studies have shown demonstrated the power of positive thinking upon stressful situations.

3. Look into stress-relief: There are a number of stress relieving products available today, from pocket therapists and relaxing soundtracks to more advanced technology including neurofeedback and brain entrainment devices.

4. Consider meditation, yoga or tai chi: There are many different approaches that can teach you appropriate relaxation and body awareness skills. With practice, these disciplines can help you bring your stress levels under control.

5. Consider online therapy: Here is a great resource put together by the reseach team at ConsumersAdvocate.org, to help you choose the best online therapy for your needs.

No matter the cause of your stress, making the decision to act is the first step on your way to living a happier life. Whatever you do, don't just sit there and suffer in silence.

Samuel Maddock is a registered osteopath and health technology researcher. He has over a decade’s experience researching the latest innovations in health and wellness technology and consulting for health technology manufacturers to help improve product quality and effectiveness.

If you have stress overload, a quick online search will yield loads of stress management techniques. But not all stress is created equally. Internal and external stressors need to be handled in different ways.

Handling the stress of a speeding ticket would look much different from the way you’d work to improve your self-esteem. While both situations cause stress, the amount of control you have over each of them is very different.

A speeding ticket happens to you (external) while self-esteem is created by you (internal). To reduce the stress of receiving a speeding ticket, your only choice is to change your reaction.

To reduce the stress you feel from low self-esteem, you have internal power to change the way you view yourself altogether.

Simply put, internal stressors describe stress that happens within the mind while external stressors are events that happen in your surroundings. Identifying whether your stressors are mostly internal or external will guide you toward better stress control.

What’s So Bad About Stress?

When humans feel threatened by events, thoughts or feelings, their bodies undergo a physical stress response. This releases chemicals like cortisol that contribute to lowered physical and mental health.

Effects of stress include:

  • Fatigue
  • Anxiety
  • Sleep problems
  • Chest pain
  • Sadness or depression
  • Eating problems
  • Risk for heart attack or stroke

The effects of stress are the same whether stress comes from internal or external sources. Negative effects build up over time, and if stress is a chronic problem, they lead to worsening health conditions.

If you experience constant stress, start by identifying the source and finding appropriate stress management practices to preserve your mental and physical health. Begin by asking yourself whether your stressors are coming from within or around you.

Internal Stressors

Internal stressors are made by your belief system and the way you evaluate yourself. When you have trouble meeting personal expectations, goals and visions, internal stress results.

Additionally, the way you think about life and the world around you impacts your stress levels. Sometimes, reality doesn’t match your belief system. Differences between reality and your expectations can be quite stressful.

Your everyday emotions can be internal stressors, as can mental illnesses such as anxiety or depression. Your thinking patterns can lead to detrimental stress buildup.

More examples of internal stressors:

  • Pessimistic attitude
  • Negative self-talk
  • Deep need to be perfect
  • Low self-esteem
  • Unhealthy standards for self

The only way to effectively handle internal stressors is to change your way of thinking. It might take a conversation with a friend or a therapist, lots of journal writing or finding an outlet in the arts to help remold your preconceptions.

Learning to handle internal stressors makes it much easier to handle external stressors, too. When you develop flexibility and coping strategies while alleviating internal stressors, you can apply these same skills to stressors caused by external sources.

External Stressors

External stressors are out of your control. These are stressful things that happen in your surroundings, your environment. From worldwide events to small car accidents, everyone experiences external stress daily.

The key difference between external and internal stressors is that external stressors are unlikely to be in your control. The only way to reduce the stress caused by external stressors is to change the way you react to the stressors. You control the effect it has on your life.

Examples of external stressors include:

  • Busy schedule
  • Work problems
  • Family issues
  • Financial trouble
  • Social problems
  • Injury
  • Unforeseen circumstances

External stressors range in severity and affect each person differently. A series of external stressors can add up to create massive stress levels, which threaten your health.

While you don’t have much control over external factors themselves, you do control your environment and the way you react to external events.

You can adjust your environment to reduce the likelihood of external stressors. And you can develop new ways of processing external stressors, such as practicing a technique called radical acceptance.

The key understanding you need about external stressors is that you can’t control most of them, but you can control the way you react. That’s why it’s best for you to first conquer your internal stressors–because you’ll have prepared your mind to better handle tough external stressors.

The Amount of Control You Have is Key 

It’s important to identify whether stressors are coming from an internal or external place so you can figure out whether or not they’re in your control. When you identify how much control you have over a situation, you can better manage the distress it causes.

It’s easier to control internal stressors, so begin by dealing with internal stressors. By relieving your internal stress, it will be easier to handle the external stressors that come at you each day. Plus, the techniques you use to eliminate internal stressors can be transferred to external stressors when you’re ready, helping eliminate more overall stress.

There are countless ways to handle both internal and external stressors, but here are a handful of tips to help you get started:

Tips for Handling Internal Stressors

  1. Journal. Keep track of your day-to-day experiences and record changes in your mood. You’ll begin to see patterns in the way you think, which is the first step in identifying and eliminating unhealthy internal responses.
  2. Therapy. Sometimes it takes a professional to recognize unhealthy patterns in your thinking and help you get back on track. A therapist can help you think more positively about yourself and teach you stress-management skills.
  3. Exercise. Physical activity is a very effective stress relief tool. Not only does it relieve tension and feel-good chemicals in your body, but it can offer a meditative state for your mind to process stress. Plus, exercise combats the negative health effects caused by stress.

Tips for Handling External Stressors

  1. Talk it out. If you’re feeling stress because of a situation with a friend, boss or family member, speaking up can relieve anxiety and stress. It might feel difficult, but talking through issues knocks out a lot of associated stress.
  2. Develop stress-relief strategies. When stressful things happen out of nowhere, you should have some go-to techniques to reduce stress in those moments. It’s helpful to learn and know stress-relieving breathing or meditation techniques. You’ll be better prepared to handle stress from external events.
  3. Make changes. If life is just too stressful in general, you may need to make some difficult decisions. Leaving a toxic job or relationship might be hard, but it might also remove chronic stress. Take steps to create a life that takes care of you, not one that buries you in stress.

Everyone’s different, so it’s a good thing there are stress management techniques to fit into anyone’s life. For more ideas on relieving both internal and external stress,

Check out these 170 stress management techniques. Try different techniques until you find stress-relief methods that work for you.

When You Should Get Help

Yes, everyone undergoes stress. But that doesn’t mean you have to suffer through it. People need to manage stress in order to be their best selves. You will always experience stress, but with stress management practice, you’ll begin to handle it with more ease.

If stress is ongoing and you’re feeling it deepen to a point of constant sadness, anxiety or depression, it might be time to talk to a doctor or therapist. Sometimes, people need help identifying internal and external stressors, and learning how to deal with them in healthy ways. There’s nothing wrong with seeking help when stress is putting your overall health at risk.