External Stressors
Stress is one of serious problem in this era. At the first, stress can be stimulus to improve our performance in many things. Unfortunately, today stressful can damage the balance. We often find the causes of stress in our life. The causes of stress are known as “stressors”. Here, we will study the main causes of stress which arise due to external circumstances. We have seen elsewhere that stress can be caused by our external circumstances. Pradeep Chadha (2005) explains that external stressors are sources of stress that present around us in our life. There are many external stressors. They are financial problems, major life changes, daily hassles, workplace, and college.
First, financial problem is the main source of stress. According to Help Guide, financial problems stress many people. Money dictates how you live and provide for yourselves and your family, and when you experience fears of financial problems your stress levels increase. In this era, we cannot be able to do what we want to due to lack of money. Today, demand to fulfill daily needs is urge. Debts are piling up. Credit Card payments, pending mortgage installments, rising costs of education, mounting expenditure on health concerns. Financial matters top the list of stressors.
Then, stress can be caused by major life changes. Stress can occur because the pleasant thing in a person’s life has changed. The research that was done by Psychiatrists Drs. Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe revealed a list of common causes of stress that called as The Holmes and Rahe Social Readjustment Scale. For example, a family is happy living in their house. They’ve lived there for a number of years and have developed close friends in there and do not want to move but are forced to move because their home is being repossessed. They will find the event of moving infinitely far more stressful than a person who has lived in their home for a short time, next to a very noisy, or difficult neighbor and even who wants to move to get away from the noise. We can imagine that how they cannot stress if they have to change the things that felt comfort with the other condition that they cannot predict. They aren’t sure that they can live comfort at the other situation.
In addition, daily hassles can be stressors. Daily hassles means that the majority of stressors that we find it a day-to-day basis are not as extreme as life events (Brian Luke Seaward). For instance, misplacing our car keys, traffic jam, minor arguments with family/colleagues, etc. Agree with him, psychologist Richard Lazarus (1984) in Core Concept in Health, at the University of California, indicates that minor problems- life’s daily hassles- can be a greater source of stress because they occur much more often. In this case, stress occurs because it happens every day and it always disturbs our activities even it can bear the activities. Because of it, everybody feels stress every day when they are in this condition.
Third, the external stressor is workplace. According to “life Positive” that Stress at work is a relatively new phenomenon of modern lifestyles. Stress that usually appears in work is culture of workplace whether in new office or not. Everybody is passed to adapt to the various aspects of workplace culture such as communication patterns, hierarchy, dress code, workspace and behavioral patterns of the boss as well as the co-workers, can be a lesson of life. If somebody is in maladjustment to workplace cultures, it can cause conflict and automatically stress for him.
Finally, the most source of stress for student is transition to college-life. The American Journal of Health Behavior identified the management of new choices concerning employment, interpersonal relationships, sexual behaviors, and living arrangements to be common potential stressors for students (Swanholm, Vosvick, & Chng, 2009). Many kinds of assignments, exams, and choosing a major are the academic stressors faced by college student.
Based on the explanation above, we can conclude that many things around us potentially cause stress and influence our health. Stressors can come from financial problem, major life changes, daily hassles, work and college.
References
Anonym. Stress of work. Life Positive [internet]. Available at: http://www.lifepositive.com/mind/psychology/stress/stress-at-work.asp [Accessed 17th November 2011].
Chadha, Pradeep. (2005). Stressors: External and Internal. Ezine articles [internet] 2nd November 2005. Available at: http://ezinearticles.com/?Stressors---External-And-Internal&id=134317 [Accessed 17th November 2011].
Luke, Brian Seaward. Causes of Stress. Stress Management for Health Cours [internet]. Available at: http://stresscourse.tripod.com/id14.html [Accessed 17th November 2011].
M, Paul Insel., T. Walton Roth. (2005). Core Concept in Health. Mc. Graw Hill: USA
Swanholm, E., Vosvick, M., & Chng, C. (2009). Pessimism, trauma, risky sex: Covariates of depression in college students. American Journal of Health Behavior, 33:309-318.
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