Understanding and Managing Stressors

Of course, you already know what stress is and have probably experienced it today, or yesterday, or at any point in the past year. But do you know what the difference is between “stress” and “stressors?”

Stressors are situations that are experienced as a perceived threat to one’s well-being or position in life, especially if the challenge of dealing with it exceeds a person’s perceived available resources.

When one encounters stressors, the body’sstress responseis triggered, and a series of physiological changes take place to allow the person tofight or run. If this sounds like stress, it’s because sometimes when people talk about ‘stress’ in their life, they are really talking about stressors; stressors lead to the body’s stress response and the experience of stress.

The important thing to remember is that stressors are the cause of stress.

What Situations Become Stressors?

What situations are stressors? That can vary from person to person. While some things tend to stress many people—job demands, relationship conflicts, a hectic schedule—not every potential stressor causes stress for everyone.

Each person has different stressors because each of us has a unique set of resources, understanding of the world, and way of perceiving things. What seems like a threat to one person may be perceived as a challenge to another.

Sometimes these differences can go unnoticed—it may not occur to you that a trip to the mall can be a stressor, but to someone who hates crowds and shopping, an afternoon at the mall can be a significant stressor.

Managing the Stressors In Your Life

While it would be impractical to eliminate all stress (and because certain types of stress, such aseustress, are actually good for you, you wouldn’t want to, anyway), it is important to be able to minimize stressors in your life and deal with the stress that you do experience—what’s known as stress management.

An important first step is to begin thinking of stress as something that you can and should learn tomanage, just as you’d take any other problem head-on. For now, here are some targeted resources for managing the stress from specific stressors:

If there’s something that you dread in your life, begin to think why, troubleshoot what you can, and develop habits to build resilience when you can’t arrange things as you’d prefer them. Ultimately, if you’re able to minimize your stress even a little bit it’s a good thing.

How Does Stress Affect Your Health?

2 SourcesVerywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Oken BS, Chamine I, Wakeland W.A systems approach to stress, stressors and resilience in humans. Behav Brain Res. 2015;282:144-54. PMID:25549855Troy AS, Wilhelm FH, Shallcross AJ, Mauss IB.Seeing the silver lining: cognitive reappraisal ability moderates the relationship between stress and depressive symptoms. Emotion. 2010 Dec;10(6):783.

2 Sources

Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.Oken BS, Chamine I, Wakeland W.A systems approach to stress, stressors and resilience in humans. Behav Brain Res. 2015;282:144-54. PMID:25549855Troy AS, Wilhelm FH, Shallcross AJ, Mauss IB.Seeing the silver lining: cognitive reappraisal ability moderates the relationship between stress and depressive symptoms. Emotion. 2010 Dec;10(6):783.

Oken BS, Chamine I, Wakeland W.A systems approach to stress, stressors and resilience in humans. Behav Brain Res. 2015;282:144-54. PMID:25549855Troy AS, Wilhelm FH, Shallcross AJ, Mauss IB.Seeing the silver lining: cognitive reappraisal ability moderates the relationship between stress and depressive symptoms. Emotion. 2010 Dec;10(6):783.

Oken BS, Chamine I, Wakeland W.A systems approach to stress, stressors and resilience in humans. Behav Brain Res. 2015;282:144-54. PMID:25549855

Troy AS, Wilhelm FH, Shallcross AJ, Mauss IB.Seeing the silver lining: cognitive reappraisal ability moderates the relationship between stress and depressive symptoms. Emotion. 2010 Dec;10(6):783.

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What Situations Become Stressors?#

Managing the Stressors In Your Life#

What Situations Become Stressors?

Managing the Stressors In Your Life