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Are You Creating Extra, Unnecessary Stress In Your Life?

Have you ever been around one of those people that finds a way to be stressed out about every little thing that goes on in his/her life?

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Have you ever been around one of those people that finds a way to be stressed out about every little thing that goes on in his/her life? Some person that creates a dramatic story about what’s happening so that the thing that was already somewhat stressful becomes a massive “woe is me” story of stress and anger and frustration?

Ugh. Me too. I’ve been around a lot of those people, and I’ve also been one of those people. When I was in second grade, my mom called my teacher (Sister Therese) to complain about the absurd amounts of homework the good sister had given my class. My mom was shocked to learn that the reason I was staying up so late every night and crying over my homework was because I had been working several weeks ahead of my classmates.

Fast forward to my law career: much like my 8-year-old taskmaster self, I stayed late every night, and I billed over 2400 hours in my first year to prove that I was the best, smartest, and brightest associate (yuck). Through the lens of hindsight, I can now take ownership of the fact that I participated in creating a lot of extra, unnecessary stress in my life by being such a people-pleasing perfectionist and overachiever.

As someone who now helps clients with stress management, I’ve come to see stress as being of two origins: (1) external stress (i.e., stressful situations in our lives over which we have no control, which might create a stress response in the body) and (2) internal (self-created) stress (i.e., the stress we create in our lives by turning every little thing that happens into some bigger story in our minds). Put another way, there is the stress that naturally occurs in the body as a result of an external event, and then there is a separate level of stress that we create in our minds.

Stress can show up with some pretty serious physical symptoms, like tightness in the chest, shortness of breath, muscle tension, headaches, insomnia, high blood pressure, gastrointestinal problems, etc. So why in the world would anyone ever intentionally create their own stress?  Because that’s what we’re conditioned to do. Our society teaches us to work, work, work, ruminate on every planned and unplanned detail in our lives, and relax only at socially acceptable times.

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Here are some questions to help you determine whether you’re creating unnecessary, added stress in your life:

  • Do you regularly procrastinate?
  • Are you a perfectionist in some aspect of your life?
  • Do you perpetually worry about things (like the weather or flight times or things that happened in the past) that aren’t at all within your control?
  • Do you overschedule or overcommit yourself to too many activities or people?
  • Do you spend a lot of time trying to please or impress people?

If you’ve answered yes to any of the above questions, you might be making life more stressful than it needs to be. Holding yourself and others to unreachable standards, or trying to change or control what cannot be changed or controlled, can be significant (and completely unnecessary) sources of self-created stress.

So what now?

First, stop telling yourself stories. The minute you feel stress arising, don’t tell yourself a story about it. You might not be able to take yourself out of a stressful situation (like your boss yelling at you), and you might not be able to stop the stress response from arising in your body (like that stomach ache), but you can stop yourself from running down the doomsday path to make a stressful situation bigger than it already is (now I’m going to get fired, I’ll lose my apartment, my partner will leave me, and I will die alone in an alley surrounded by cats). Stop telling yourself ridiculous stories, and stop believing them.

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Second, remember: you are not the stress. Take a step back from the stressful situation and realize that you (as a person) are not stressed, but that you are experiencing stress in your body. When you allow yourself to realize that stress is merely a phenomenon that arises in the body (I feel stress in my body), rather than something that you are personally (I am stressed), there’s a little more space.

Third, breathe. Yoga, breath, and meditation all work to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system and reduce the stress response in our bodies. Take a few moments to regulate your breath, calm your heart rate, and calm your stress response. And allow the breath to remind you that you are fully alive, right now, in this moment.

Fourth, find a kinder path forward. The first part of changing any behavior is recognizing that you’re engaging in it. When you recognize that you’re operating within a space of self-created stress, you can also recognize (on your own, or with the help of a friend) that there is a step forward that involves a much kinder way of operating than the one you’re used to.

Always, always, always choose the kinder path.

Megan Grandinetti is a wellness & life coach, yoga teacher, and recovering attorney. Learn more about Megan, and receive a free 10-minute guided meditation, by visiting www.megangrandinettiyoga.com and signing up for her email list.

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