Types of Stress

Types of Stress | How To Relieve Stress

Stress has a variety of forms, each will effect us differently. The types of stress that you experience is dependent upon your lifestyle, your work environment and personality, as well as your toleration of stress. There are three main types of stress; acute, persistent acute and chronic. Stress relief can be achieved and it is useful to know what sort of stresses are out there to make you more aware but also understand why certain stresses are experienced.

Acute Stress

This is the most common form of stress and happens on a day to day basis. It is a short burst of stress that deals with the demands and pressures of daily life, for example one day you might be late for work therefore as a response you rush around the house to collect your things for work, another example is accidentally spilling a drink and as a response you rush to the kitchen to get a towel to dry the carpet. This stress is perfectly natural and is thrilling and exciting in small doses; it acts similar to an adrenaline rush. This type of stress does not cause any long-term conditions, even though it can be temporarily discomforting this feeling is short-lived. The most common symptoms you are likely to experience is muscle tension, slight increase of your heartbeat, heartburn or digestive problems (or the butterflies in your stomach effect), migraines and shortness of breath.

Persistent Acute Stress

This is a frequent stress especially for those who have a busy and hectic lifestyle. Always being on the rush, taking on too much to handle is usually the cause of persistent acute stress. Self-inflicted demands and pressures, increases a persons level of irritability because of the overload of responsibilities, therefore life becomes out of control and unmanageable. The unfortunate consequence of this type of stress is that eventually it becomes integrated into a persons lifestyle, therefore they tend to perceive themselves as a failure and that they are ‘jinxed’ with events going wrong. Worrying about something tends to be just around the corner, they feel like an incident is likely to happen, they anticipate the worse. It results in the inability to correctly form lasting relationships due to anxiety, paranoia and sometimes irritability that can come across as hostility. If work related incidents is the cause of this persistent stress then it could result in excessive competitive drives due to the constant paranoia of feeling like you are not succeeding. Examples of this is feeling like the manager constantly examining your performance or that your colleagues are scheming against you. Consequently those who suffer from persistent acute stress do not realise anything is wrong and are usually reluctant to change unless they are overcome by the will to be relieved from stress.

Chronic Stress

Chronic stress has the most severe consequences if left and not dealt with. This type of stress focuses on wearing away at a persons emotions, their physical health and mental stability. Chronic stress can be a result of financial stress, breakdown of a marriage, childcare problems or career depression. It is common for chronic stress to appear in people who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic incident, an incident which changed their view on life, changed their personality and how they react to their surrounding and other people. It opens their eyes to a whole range of negative aspects that are encountered in life such as a breakdown of marriage being interpreted as you being not worthy of forever lasting love, being unworthy of companionship and the incident is solely your fault. Those who suffer from chronic stress tend to get use to it; it is who they are, they have no control over it, they believe that there is no hope and that they will have never ending depression. Treatment is usually difficult and requires behavioural treatment, stress management as well as medical assistance.