Various causes of stress in today’s urban society

Stress plays a role in our daily lives so it is just a normal thing for every person. In limited quantities, stress is good; it can motivate you and help you become more productive. However, too much stress, or a strong response to stress can be harmful. Stress can come from any situation or thought that make feel frustrated, angry, or anxious. From Praveen’s research, “stress is the reason for two thirds of the total visits to the Physician”. Moreover, it is also the leading cause of the coronary artery diseases, cancer, accidents and respiratory diseases besides some others. So, what are the biggest causes of present day stress, and how do these lead to such high levels of tension? According to the “Stress and Relaxation” book by Praveen, there are three main causes of stress: they are Financial Problem, Workplace Stress, and Personal Relationships.

Financial Problem is the main cause of stress these days. First of all, debt levels are rising faster than both incomes and assets. Never has it been easier to access debt in all forms – lines of credit, mortgages, credit cards. You can now buy pretty much anything without having cash. Debt has created a lot of the economic problems we face today and was the biggest factor in the world financial crisis in 2007. Secondly, retirement is supposed to be the best years of a person life but instead, it is stressing people out because of lack of planning, fewer pension plans, low savings rates, high debt levels and fear about the foundation of government benefits. Financial stress is all too common in our society and we need to do something about it. The starting point is a little knowledge but true success comes from action (RetireHappyBlog.ca). It comes from taking control of financial affairs and developing good financial habits.    

Work place stress occurs in a wide range of work circumstances but is often made worse when employees feel they have little support from supervisors and colleagues and where they have little control over work or how they can cope with its demands and pressures. Research findings show that the most stressful type of work is that which values excessive demands and pressures that are not matched to workers' knowledge and abilities, where there is little opportunity to exercise any choice or control, and where there is a little support from others. So, here are the solutions of above problem, the more support workers receive from others at work, or in relation to work, the less likely they are to experience work stress. Moreover, when workers have control over their work and the way they do it and the more they participate in decisions that concern their jobs, the less likely they are to experience work stress.

Relationship problems are another type of "stress" we all experience from time to time. Conflicts can arise with our spouse, parents, children, friends, co-workers, employees, bosses, or even with total strangers. As common as our relationship problems are, we often misunderstand what causes them to occur. Much of the time they come from hidden conversations and action patterns within us, not from the behaviour or attitudes of others. The problem is we often don't notice the role that we play. Of all the relationship-destroying patterns that affect both men and women, the most damaging is our tendency to blame someone or something other than ourselves when relationship difficulties occur. This pattern is hard to resist, since we can usually find many irritating habits or behaviours in others that seem to be the cause of our problems. When we blame either our partner or our "relationship" as the source of our dissatisfaction, we not only fail to acknowledge how we may have contributed to our problems, but we also fail to see that we often have the power to successfully resolve them.

All in all, these main causes of stress are taking their toll on today’s urban man in the shape of stress related diseases that we mentioned at the top.  To break yourself out of the daily stresses, start by practicing stress releasing exercises, and you will be on your way to freedom from the main causes of stress afflicting our present day lifestyle. Develop resilience and never let stress get you down. It can be learnt. But, yes, you have to try.