Does Your Personality Cause You Stress?
You may find this hard to believe,
but experts say that your personality can actually cause you
stress. To a certain extent, your personality is determined at
birth. However, there are certain characteristics you
probably developed over the years that are now co ntributing to your
stress levels. Though one can’t change his or her
personality overnight, it’s certainly possible to change
certain habits that may now be causing you stress.
To
begin with, ask yourself if you have low self-esteem. Do you
feel as if you’re inferior to other people? Do you constantly
berate yourself for your faults? Do you consider yourself to
be the sum total of your mistakes?
There’s
evidence to suggest that low self-esteem can lead to stressful
situations. The problem is that you may be putting
unnecessarily putting stress on yourself. Therefore, what you
need to do is to start enhancing your self-esteem.
This
process starts with removing the "negative talk" that goes on
inside your head. Instead of focusing on your weaknesses,
write out a list of your strengths. You should also list all
of your major accomplishments. You’ll probably be amazed when
you realize just how much you’ve achieved. Whenever you feel
the urge to downgrade yourself, think of your attributes. This
should help you stop the endless thinking about your failures
you may be repeating to yourself.
Stress can
also be the result of being overburdened. Do you take
on too many responsibilities? There are certain
responsibilities at home, at work, and at school that we must
deal with, but sometimes we may find we’ve overextended
ourselves.
List your major responsibilities and see if
there’s some way for you to whittle down the list. You may be
surprised to learn just how much you’ve taken on. With some
planning, you might be able to shift some of your
responsibilities to other members of your household or to your
co-workers. Be sure to talk with your mate and your boss if
your stress level seems to be out of control. Together, you
should be able to work out strategies to reduce the amount of
stress you’re feeling.
Let's face it, some of
us are control freaks. We feel as if we need to
control every detail within sight. If you fall into this
category, you may be experiencing stress because of your
controlling nature. You may also find that this weakness is
negatively impacting your personal life, causing you to feel
additional stress in your relationships.
In
order to combat this tendency, try realize there are certain
things that are simply beyond your control. The
sooner you recognize this, the better off you'll be, and the
less stress you’ll feel.
Another prime cause of stress
is fear, especially fear of the unknown. You may be fearful of
making mistakes or of being judged harshly. In order to
counteract this, you must recognize that everyone commits
errors — even major league baseball players!
Learn to
forgive yourself for your faults, otherwise you’ll constantly
put yourself under a tremendous amount of stress. Follow the
motto: Do your best and let nature take care of the rest. Try
not to agonize over every little thing. In addition, learn to
get over the guilt of not being perfect, otherwise your stress
level is likely to constantly hit the roof.
You have to realize that recognizing your
faults is only half the battle. Once you know what
personal foibles you need to work on, you'll be in a better
position to reduce your stress. Also, realize that it probably
took you a long time to develop such personality flaws, so it
might take some time to eliminate them as well.
In
other words, don't expect to radically change your
personality in a week. However, with diligence and
patience, you can adjust those aspects of your personality
that are causing you grief. Once you eliminate these flaws,
you should feel more energetic, less stressed and better able
to take on the world — and you may just find your blood
pressure decreasing as well.
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