Are you stressing yourself by thinking too much?
Why is it that some people become totally stressed when the
smallest thing goes wrong while others can cope with
extraordinary amounts of pressure with it batting an eye?
There can be many factors at play here. We become more easily
stressed when we are tired or unwell. But with all things being
equal it is what we think about a situation that will determine
whether we are stressed by it or not.
For example, let's look at two people waiting for a phone call
from a potential romantic interest and how differently they
respond when they do not receive the phone call.
Person A starts to fret and draws many conclusions about why the
person hasn't called and will most likely start to think about
all the times in the past that they have been let down in a
similar manner. They might start to think things like - "men
never call when they say they will, there must be something
wrong with me because no one wants to go out with me, men are
totally unreliable, no one is ever going to want to go out with
me again etc." With all these negative thoughts and self-talk,
person A is likely to become stressed, depressed and/or
defensive.
Person B on the other hand simply thinks that the potential
caller forgot, were busy or changed their minds. They may feel a
little disappointed that the phone call did not occur but they
do not get involved in a lot of negative thinking and simply let
it go and get on with their day.
There are two important differences occurring with our two
people.
Person A is taking it personally and is then inventing stories
about the situation.
Person B is just sticking to facts. Person B is not dredging up
the past and making things up about what is going on and is not
jumping to conclusions about what this one missed phone call
will mean to their future.
When you look at it like this, you see how ridiculous we can be,
when we feel that someone has let us down. We search our past
for every related incident and this makes us feel even worse and
makes us project into the future and all we can then see is that
we are going to be unhappy forever more.
But in reality what has really happened is that we have talked
ourselves in to becoming stressed and unhappy.
If we want to stop stressing ourselves with our thinking we need
to get control of our wandering minds and instead stick to the
facts. With our missed phone call the facts simply are 1.
Someone told us they would phone at a certain time 2. They did
not phone when they said they would. 3. We probably feel
disappointed
So those are the facts - the rest of it we invent.
So next time you are getting stressed, stop a moment and
consider what the facts are and what you are inventing about
those facts. You may even be able to stop the stress dead in its
tracks and laugh at how our own minds can be our worst enemy.