Our daily undertakings expose us to various situations and sometimes these situations are threatening to our lives.
Such situations might cause tension, pressure or negative emotions like anxiety and anger.
Psychologists explain stress as a process involving a person's interpretation and responses to these threatening events.
There are many sources of stress and they vary from one person to another depending on the surrounding circumstances.
Individuals can respond differently to the same event depending on how one views things.
These sources of stress can be classified in three categories; catastrophic events, major life changes and daily hassles.
Catastrophic events are those that happen suddenly and the victim has no defensive mechanism.
They include natural disasters such as earthquakes, tornadoes, fires, floods and hurricanes.
Others are wars, torture, accidents, attacks among others.
The victim may not show the effects immediately but after sometime the stress begins to show.
At some point our lives we go through changes and some changes are not welcome.
You can face challenges such as divorce, imprisonment, unemployment, illness and death.
Planning for a wedding is stressful but marriage is a positive experience.
Technology advances has brought about new inventions leading to less leisure time and the effects of stress are more profound than imagined.
Mostly the stress in our lives is caused by daily hassles related to our jobs, relationships and surrounding environment.
Some petty things irritate us like heavy traffic, noisy neighborhoods, long queues and these affect our moods every day.
Thus,they are considered the most common causes of stress.
Stress is part of life but you should learn how to cope with it to prevent long term problems.