How to Study Your Personal Stress Signals

Increased awareness of your stress signals may enable you to take action early

Photo by Wei Ding on Unsplash

An enjoyable piece by writer Nicolas Cole floated past my screen. He posed the question “So, how do you tell your life is out of balance?” This was rather well-timed as I was writing something similar. With my homemade Macchiato in hand I got stuck in. He had recognised seven things as his personal signals. Some we shared, some not so much. But one particularly made me sit up and take note. “You are spending more money than usual” I realised with a bit of an Aha moment, that I do this too. I am aware that if feeling low and in need of a little pick-me-up (shot of dopamine) that I am prone to scan my Zara app. and tap tap, pop a little something into the basket and hey presto press return. But I had never thought this to be a behavioural trait for stress. This new clue encouraged me to dig deeper and ask “what are my stress signals?” Below is the result of this detective work.

I have divided the information into 4 categories behaviours, thoughts, emotions/feelings, and very important but often overlooked physical sensations. Its very easy for many of us to overlook the physical sensations as we become so embroiled by what’s going on in our heads. For each category I have just listed 5 signals. Don’t worry if you have loads more I certainly do.

Behaviours
Erratic meal times
Stopping exercising
Increased intake of carbs
Starting too many things at once
Being quick tempered in the car and with other drivers

Thoughts
Thinking is all over the place, lack of focus with lots of mind-wandering. I may be thinking:

“I don’t have time to exercise”
“I haven’t time to cook or make a salad”
“I will go and grab something from the café on the corner”
“I have got so much to do “

Emotions/feelings
Stress
Anxiety
Irritations
Annoyed
Prone to feel hurt and let down

Physical Sensations
Feeling on edge
Top bit of my chest is tight
Constant feeling of butterflies in my tummy, not in good way
Not settled — wanting to move all the time
Breathing short and shallow

Many stressors are out of our control

There are two types of stressor. External stressors are defined as things that happen to us. Then there are Internal Stressors, and these are what we do to ourselves. Unfortunately, we can’t change or stop the majority of things that stress us, that is part of life. But we can change what we do next, how we react and how we can tinker with our internal stressors.

External stressors may be positive or negative: being made redundant, getting a promotion, having a baby, death of a loved one, getting married, getting divorced, a noisy neighbour, building work, difficult boss, bullying, changes to commuting, the list is endless.

Internal stressors are of our own making. Not getting enough sleep. Drinking too much alcohol, or caffeine, eating the wrong foods, scheduling too many things to do in a day, not moving, workaholic or drinking too much alcohol or caffeine, eating the wrong foods, scheduling too many things in a day, not moving, workaholic perfectionist tendencies, negative self talk.

Get to know yourself better to make changes

The first thing to do before we can make a change is to be aware of what we are doing. If I order an Uber to go to Piccadilly the driver has to know where to pick me up from. So it is with making changes we need to know what we are doing before change can take place.

The next time you feel stressed write down your signals exactly as they happened, divided up as I have suggested

behaviours,
feelings, or emotions
thoughts
physical sensations

Really get to know yourself. Be curious and explore what is going on and remember to notice how it feels in your body.

This self “deconstruction” may be a first step to increasing your understanding of yourself and why and how you do things. It can give you fresh insights and associations that you did not realise existed or connected with. It may also lead to understanding that some of the things you do are habitual, automatic. It’s not enough, though, to be aware of what you are doing, you have to take action to make change. Realising that “I am eating too much bread in lockdown” doesn’t stop you from eating bread. But if you were to write down how often, when, how much and what you are feeling emotionally and physically and what you are telling yourself, this provides the information from which you can make some subtle changes.

My biggest clue for when I am stressed

My own biggest clue for when I am stressed is that I get lippy in the car. Other drivers will annoy me. I am of course completely right! My patience vanishes.

When I was learning REBT (Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy) I used this trait as a teaching tool. Now when I get like this, I usually have an Aha moment. In my body I will have feelings in my stomach that I sense mean irritation and annoyance. In my head, I may acknowledge “okay you are being an arse now, so you are stressed.” I then deliberately alter my normal arse style behaviour. Instead of barking at some poor driver or honking my horn or worse. I stop and allow everyone to go through. I wait for everybody. This doesn’t always feel comfortable or natural, but I find it does help. The deliberate behavioural change stops things from escalating. This stops me from creating an unnecessary situation that in the past may have played over and over in my head for an hour or two. Most importantly it helps me recognise and acknowledge the reality of how I am feeling. Armed with this I can make adjustments to help myself. It’s not perfect and I still throw things out of the cot, but I believe I do it less.

Many years ago a good friend called Cherie told me a little story when I was particularly stressed and she was doing her best to soothe me:

“If you meet 3 ‘arse’ holes in a day, chances are that one of them is you.”

I have never forgotten this. First off it made me roar with laughter and still does whenever I think about it. Whenever I remember her comment it instantly diffuses the stress I am feeling and is a very helpful indicator of my emotional state. Now when I get angry or irritated several times in a day, then I know that it’s me that is the problem and not everyone else!

Personal tips

  1. Pay attention, be curious about what you do and why. Be your own detective. Write your lists for when you are stressed, noticing as much as you can as in the categories suggested.
  2. Then prepare a list of things that might be help you cope. Here are few of mine that I keep on my radar to counter some of my ‘stressed out’ traits; when I remember!
  • Plan and prepare food in advance, and respect regular mealtimes, and sit down properly to eat
  • Practice some meditation; the 3-minute breathing space is a wonderful simple practice; plan to practice this 3 X a day for example at breakfast, lunch and dinner
  • Challenge the thought or belief “I don’t have time to exercise” and replace it with a more helpful belief “there are loads of online HIIT workouts that are just 20 minutes, I can find 20 minutes”
  • Be realistic in what I have to do, distinguishing between what is necessary, what needs to be done and what I think should be done.
  • Be conscious of focusing my attention on one thing at time. Avoiding the temptation to multi-task.