There is no denying the fact that we all experience stress in our everyday life. But most of us take a misconception about stress and what it can do to our lives. It is important to grasp a basic understanding of stress so we would know why we are feeling this and how we can appropriately respond to it.

Part of understanding stress is to know what it is and what it is not. Many myths about stress have led some people to believe that it is a completely undesirable feeling. This may be true, but it does not work the same way for everyone. Then again, it is with the way you perceive and the way you deal with the feeling that makes it either undesirable or simply manageable. Let us identify the different allegories about stress and then we can be educated about it.

Wrong: Stress is an entirely bad feeling

This is just how we associate the feeling with: a negative emotion that destructs our lives. But what we should realize is that stress is a normal condition in a person’s life. A little amount of stress can actually help us in solving problems and dealing with pressure.

For example, if your supervisor is filling your day with pending tasks, it is natural to feel pressured about it, even just the thought of it. But because you feel pressured to work on them, you do not waste your time attending to other things but you focus on your tasks instead because you want it done right away. It is the feeling of stress that pushes you to act and take some control to get it done. You simply want to relieve yourself from the heavy feeling so you respond to it by finishing your task.

From the given example in the workplace, we can probably say that stress, when managed properly, can give us satisfaction and a feeling of triumph over problems. Knowing how to handle work stress will even make you a productive and happy working individual.

Wrong: Stress is absolutely the same for everyone

The belief is an absolute myth. We all experience stress but the experience is not uniform for everyone. Stress is triggered in each person differently and that solely depends on how we take stress in our lives. The stress responses vary, too. It is said that a more positive individual gets less stressed over someone who is very pessimistic with life’s challenges.

Let us take the office setting as an example. If you are an office worker and you received a warning from your manager about your unimpressive performance lately, usually the initial feeling is to feel down and depressed about the news. The way you perceive the news either triggers bad stress or a positive stress. It is bad stress if you worry about it too much and you are bound to think of the negative consequences. While you may think of it that way, it may not necessarily be the same for a fellow colleague who happens to have a similar situation as yours.

Some people who have a more positive outlook in life do not easily get stressed out when faced with a challenging situation or issue. They acknowledge that there is an existing problem but their mind conditioning is that there is always a solution to everything. You can decide to be like those kinds of individuals, too.

Wrong: Stress does not exist where indications are not found

Though knowing how to recognize stress symptoms is an important thing, you should know that not at all times do these symptoms show. When the signs are not there, do not think that you are free from stress. Others are very keen in identifying these symptoms. Since stress has a strong physiological and psychological effect, we should be sensitive to even the slightest uncomfortable feeling. Withholding those feelings may develop into some kind of physical illness.

Moreover, giving attention to only the major symptoms of stress is not a good thing. In fact, these major signs are results of the minor indications that are left unattended and unrecognized. It is a lot better to prevent the onset of stress rather than wait for it to become overwhelming.