Stressors, Stress, and Anxiety

Today, we're going to learn the difference between a stressor, stress and anxiety. This is very, very important for you to understand if you actually want to make that transition to living a life with more peace.

A stressor is defined as something that causes a state of strain or tension. Stressors can be internal or they can be external. An external stressor would be, for example, when you're in traffic and somebody suddenly cuts in front of you and you have to push those brakes. You didn't have any control over that, so that will be considered an outside or external stressor. 

An internal stressor is when your mind goes on worried mode; worried about the kids or worried about this job interview that you have. Let's say you're living with some type of depression or recurrent anxiety. Those would all be internal reasons to generate stress in your body. 

This leads me to my next point: stress. 

Stress is the response of the body and the mind, or the body mind, to a stressor. Normally, stress unleashes a series of chemicals in your body, including cortisol. Cortisol is a hormone that stops your digestion and is technically supposed to prepare you for some type of action to combat or manage this stressor that’s in front of you. This comes from way back in the day when we had to actually worry about fighting tigers; and we literally had to fight, flight, or sometimes unfortunately freeze to death.

So, stress is simply the way that your body responds to a stressor, whether internal or external.

Anxiety is a state of fear or worry in your body that can be a response to a stressor, or that can be a stressor in itself. Now, there's a whole series of videos we can do on anxiety. I just want to be at the surface level, very clear about what the difference is between a stressor, stress, and anxiety.

So, to recap real quick here: a stressor is something that causes tension or strain in your body mind. Stress is a response, physically in your body, to a stressor. Anxiety is an interpretation of stress, and it can also be a stressor in itself. Anxiety is a state of fear, worry, and nervousness. It can be manifested through symptoms such as shortness of breath, fast heart palpitations, sweaty palms, and more.

Why is it important that you as a leader and high achiever understand the difference between these three?

The reason why I'm even telling you about this is because recurrent, chronic levels of stress and anxiety are the leading cause of most diseases in the modern era.

You see, when you have recurrent levels of stress and anxiety in your body, it leads to low grade inflammation. We already know that inflammation is linked to hundreds of diseases. Some of them are fatal and kill the majority of the population. These include conditions relating to the heart, cancer, diabetes, and everything we’ve known commonly to kill people.

Stress, anxiety, depression, and all the range of emotions have a purpose and role. Emotions are action signals that give us information. The problem we have as high achievers (as people who lead other people, as people who run companies, as people who are trying to make a big difference in the world, as people who are trying to do it all and all perfectly, and so on) is that we tend to be working with underlying levels of recurrent stress and anxiety. Sometimes we are not even aware of it until we get sick

I know two CEOs who have recently had heart attacks because of the levels of stress that they were managing. I also know an HR director who took herself to the emergency room because she thought she was having a heart attack. In reality, she was just having symptoms of really heightened states of anxiety.

This is real.

If this is happening to you, I want you to stop for a moment and breathe. I want you to just simply understand and observe what is going on. Your emotions are there to give you information. 

What is not normal is for those emotions to stay there and be stuck. It is not normal for your day-to-day to be full of stress.

It starts off as just a thought in your mind. It might sound like, “Oh my gosh, I’m so stressed out. I have so much work.” Then, one day passes, the other day passes, two weeks, one month, three months, and eventually that is just how you're living your life. You eventually stop noticing that you were even stressed to begin with.

The problem with that is you don't realize that this is what's happening until you actually get sick.

In my case, I got sick with gastritis. I was in the corporate world and was doing very well. I was doing so well that I was getting promoted every year. It was really serving me to be that way until I actually developed a very, very strong gastritis.

Even just water would burn me as it would go down. When I went to the doctor for an endoscopy, I actually learned that I would have to take heartburn medication for my entire life. 

I told the doctor, “That's not going to happen, there's no way.”

So, I took it upon myself to find out the cause of my gastritis and even the recurrent headaches I was having at the time. What I learned after research was that, as a perfectionist, I was living with high levels of underlying anxiety and stress that I wasn’t even aware of.

The moment that I learned how to manage that and how to control it, then my life completely changed. I have never suffered from that again. Now, I do things differently, which is what I call achieving through peace instead of through stress.

This doesn't mean, however, that you'll never experience stress or stressors. You will, but the problem and what I'm trying to solve here is that you don't stay stuck in those emotions.

The first step to actually doing something for the betterment of it is to simply become aware, which is why I wanted to clarify the difference between a stressor, stress, and anxiety for you.

If you need a little bit of help, I have an entire array of free resources for you on my website pazitud.com. This includes a free audio training that's going to teach you exactly how to identify those recurrent stressors or stress causing situations in your life. It also gives you steps on how to minimize and eliminate it.

I highly recommend that you go check it out if you haven't yet!

Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to be here with me today. Remember that you're here in this world to feel free, at peace, and reach success that keeps you healthy, happy, and fulfilled.