STEPS

What causes stress?

The causes of stress are complex. Just as no two people suffer stress in the same way, no two people get stress in the same way. Many people find it hard to work out why the stress problem started. One reason for this is that stress is often caused by more than one thing. It can be caused by a combination of:

Your nature

Some of us are born with a greater proneness to develop stress. This is due to our genetic make-up.

First few years of life

Those who had a lot of the common childhood fears seem to be more prone to stress in adult life, e.g.

• fear of the dark
• fear of strangers
• fear of being left alone.

School age

Stress in adult life seems more common in those who:

• took longer to settle at school
• often complained of aches and pains
• cried a lot
• were irritable
• were very shy
• found it hard to deal with new situations

Adult years

Stress seems more common in those who:

• get upset easily
• are often tense
• are prone to low mood
• are prone to worry
• often feel dissatisfied with themselves and others
• feel guilt keenly

Shades of grey

None of these is black and white - fears of the dark, worry, etc. are normal. I am talking about fears that are much worse than would affect other children or adults and are seen by others as being a problem.

What happens to you in life

Life events

These may also make you more prone to stress as an adult:

• Not having a stable, secure and loving upbringing
• Being wrapped in cotton wool by a parent
• Learning to cope with stress by avoiding facing problems
• Having a lot of change in life - moving house, schools, illness (self or those close to you), parents separating, etc.

The more changes in life, the more prone most of us become to stress. Good events as well as bad can trigger stress. This is due to having to adjust to change.

Hassles

Many people with stress have a lot of hassles in their life. A hassle is a problem that is there day after day. It may be quite small. It may be hard to do much about it. It gnaws away at you. It could be a problem at work, at home, with neighbours, with debt, coping with illness.

Think of a torture where water slowly drips on your forehead hour after hour. The first hour may not be too bad. But as time goes on, each small drip gets to you more and more. Soon, you scream as each drip hits you. Hassles may work like this in stress. You can cope with them for so long but as time goes on, they start to grind you down.

How you interpret what happens to you

The problem with life events and hassles is that you will know someone who has had a lot of life events yet isn't stressed. Why? To explain this, we need to look at the way you view the events and hassles. Think of the reactions of two people who have just had the same life event - the end of a marriage. One is an active coper and one is an avoidant coper. Compare the way they react to the same event:

• Which one is the active and which one the avoidant coper?
• Who do you think will get over the stress first?
• Who are you most like?

You should see that the way you look on events in your life feeds stress. Stress then feeds the way you look at your life. This is the start of a vicious circle. We will look at this in the next section.

As we have seen, stress is often caused by a mixture of things that make you vulnerable - your basic nature, childhood factors and the coping skills you have at hand. These put you more at risk of getting stress. But it will take other things to trigger the stress, e.g. life events, hassles and the way you look at life.

You do not need to have all of these factors to cause stress. Many people with easy-going natures and who have had happy and secure childhoods also get stress. In their case, it may be that too many life events and hassles have caused the stress. It is also true that some people who do not see any of these things in their own lives still get stress. We have some way to go before we fully know what causes stress.