It is useful to recognize risk factors stress. This way you can recognize stress early in yourself and intervene when necessary. It is not always easy to recognize stress or excessive stress. Before you know it, the stress has gotten out of hand and you might even start experiencing burnout symptoms. Recognizing risk factors stress therefore can help you to keep yourself and your mind healthy.
Risk factors stress can regard different types of elements. It can regard the reaction which you have to stressful situations or situations which you associate with strong negative constructs. We have divided up the risk factors stress into situations, environment, and personality. We also start from the idea that excessive stress is generally caused by a stressful situation and your reaction to this situation.
Situations as risk factors stress
There are certain situations which can act as risk factors stress. For example, a sudden increase in workload can be a situation which leads to stress. As you can see, it does not have to be a major event per se. Situations which contain risk factors stress can even be general daily frustrations. For example a colleague who constantly makes hurtful remarks. It can be so that your frustrations regarding this situation add up and that it all becomes too much one day.
Excessive stress is often not formed in a few days' time. We often speak of longer periods of time where you are confronted with situations which lead to stress. Here it is therefore useful to pick a reaction which can reduce stress for you. Oftentimes people do not know what such a reaction is, or the stress causes them to start worrying. That is why it is useful to know which situations can be risk factors stress for you.
Personality as risk factors stress
Personality is a factor which can have a large influence on risk factors stress. As mentioned earlier, excessive stress is often triggered by a combination of a stressful situation and your reaction thereto. Your reaction to it is mainly decided upon by your personality. Your personality encompasses your experiences, your thoughts and feelings as well as your norms and moral values. All these factors have a large influence on how you deal with certain situations. Not everyone will namely respond in the same way to the same situation.
For example, people who find it difficult to arrange their thoughts have larger chances of worrying, which is one of the risk factors stress. Furthermore we notice that people who are passionate about their work or who put a lot of effort in helping other people have a larger chance of developing a burnout than people who do not do this. Perfectionists, too, carry many risk factors stress with them. THese people find it difficult to say 'no' and therefore often end up in situations where they are overwhelmed with work.
Can your personality help you?
If your personality encompasses risk factors stress, this also means that it can protect you. Your personality can indeed protect you or help you to respond to stressful situations in a better way. For example, people who go through life in an optimistic way have less of a chance of experiencing stress than people who are pessimistic do. Humor, too, is an important factor in dealing with risk factors stress.
Your environment as risk factors stress
Except for stressful situations and the way you react to those, the environment also plays a large role. For example, if you can have a good conversation with your partner after a long day at work, so that you can just get everything out, your chance of risk factors stress decreases. There are namely elements which counterbalance stress, such as a good social life. Things which make you happy can help you in your fight against risk factors stress. If these positive elements are in balance with eventual pressure which you might experience, the chances are smaller that you will experience stress, and therefore risk factors stress.
Would you like to know if you are balanced? Or if you might be at risk for an excessive stress level and risk factors stress? Then take our free online stress test here!