Misconceptions of stress can make people feel uneasy at night and prevent them from falling asleep. Not only does it prevent sleep, but it also gets their brain focusing on negative thoughts, which then creates further misconceptions of stress.
Even though stress is a daily part of life, it can get overwhelming at times. There are times in our life where we can get stressed over the littlest of things which we didn’t think would ever bother us. Usually, this happens when we are in bed.
Unnecessary stress can lead to anxiety. Stress happens when there is a gap between demand and the capacity to be able to hold it down. When we are unable to hold down capacity, it then leads to stress, which creates anxiety.
When our nervous system gets stuck in a heightened state too long, the inability to slow down to take a deep breath becomes tough. Some people will even hyperventilate at night when nothing else is there to take away their critical thoughts.
Are you past the state of stress? Is anxiety getting the best of you? If so, read my blog post on how to release anxiety using the anxiety bubble technique.
Anyways back to stress. Stress will show itself emotionally, physically, and cognitively.
What Are The Signs Of Stress
Emotional symptoms of stress can include but not exclusive to:
- Being unable to relax
- Feeling overwhelmed or losing control
- Having low to no self-esteem
- Staying away from others
- Having difficulty quieting your mind
- Becoming agitated or angry
- Feeling horrible about yourself
Physical symptoms of stress can include but not exclusive to:
- Lack of energy
- Getting ill often
- Headaches
- Tension all over the body
- Illness/disease
- Unable to swallow
- Upset stomach
- Insomnia
- Loss of sexual desire
- Rapid heartbeat or chest pains
- Grinding teeth during sleep
Cognitive symptoms of stress include but not exclusive to:
- Seeing only the negative side
- Over worrying to the point of exhaustion
- Being forgetful or disorganized
- Chasing thoughts on a loop
- Having poor judgment
- Unable to focus
Misconceptions Of Stress
1. Stress Comes From the Environment You Are In
No, stress does not come from your environment. It comes from within ourselves. It all depends on how we intake the information that we are receiving as to how it will affect us.
If we have plans in place, we can avoid much of the stress that comes our way. But for that plan to be successful, we have to want to live a stress-free life in order to get a stress-free sleep.
For stress to take place in our environment, our thoughts have to be aligned with the circumstances we are experiencing. It is those very thoughts that go to create the stress we are feeling.
Although many aspects of today’s world, such as listed below, create stress. We can still shape our lives in such a way to have a stress-free time.
- Unknown World Events
- Working long hours
- Bad economy
- Underpaid
- Overworked
- Underappreciated
- Traffic
- And so on…
By setting our priorities in order, we can solve simple problems before taking on the big ones.
Why create a world of stress where there has to be none?
2. Stress is a Choice
Stress is not a choice. It is a combination of our subconscious thoughts or beliefs about the world, which creates tension.
Most times, as we’ve grown up, we’ve developed some beliefs. Those beliefs we’ve developed are something we believe in. It’s not like we can flick a switch to stop believing in what we’ve always felt.
Sometimes the beliefs have to be challenged to overcome the stress that they are causing. To question the beliefs, a good strategy has to be in place.
Rather than thinking of what could happen if stress overwhelms a person, why not think about what could be if the stressor is released.
3. No Stress Symptoms Means No Stress
Stress symptoms could be hidden in any part of the body. For some people, stress could be manifested by the simple twitching of body parts. For others, it comes out by the things we do.
Many of us experience stress in a very tangible way, even though stress is a manifestation of psychological issues. Some of us get short of breath, others feel anxious, or just feeling tired all the time.
Not many of us would relate to the above as being stressed out. But it’s our body’s way of telling us that we need to sit back and relax.
What happens over time is, chronic stress eventually starts to wear out the mind and body by causing fatigue, loss of productivity, and forgetfulness. This often leads to insomnia.
This can take years to manifest in us. But once it exhibits, it’s gotten out of control. Before it gets out of control, you will need to know how to rein it back in.
Developing healthy ways to manage stress routines early on in life will go a long way in helping you to get through when more challenging times arise.
4. Only Negative Events Cause Stress
Any significant changes we make in our life will cause stress. It doesn’t matter what’s going on at any one moment. Somewhere in our body, stress is being created.
An event such as listed below could cause stress. You’ll notice they can either be good times or bad.
- Getting married
- Having a baby
- Losing your job
- Getting ill
- An argument with your loved one
- Buying a new house
- Moving
- Changing schools
- Changing jobs
- Graduating from school
- And so on…
As you can tell, not all of these are adverse events. But each one of them induces some stress which needs to be dealt with right away.
When the stress is dealt with right away, it stops it from becoming a bigger problem, especially when we need our rest the most, which is at night.
E.g., A good event causing undue stress
My son graduated last year. Yet he had many sleepless nights because he didn’t know what to expect after. It was a cause for celebration, but for him, it was a time of change and venturing into the unknown.
5. Stress Keeps Successful People on Their Toes
Stress does not keep anyone on their toes. It undermines their thinking. When people have a lot going on at work, it can get pretty hard to stay focused.
What happens here is it can result in building up more work because these people think it’s what they need to stay ahead of the game. This makes it harder to concentrate; it becomes a very negative cycle of creating more stress.
Successful people have to deal with cynics as well most people who idolize them. Can you imagine having to deal with all that as well trying to keep up with what you’re doing?
Most successful people learn early on how to deal with stress. The ones that don’t end up giving up, failing, or even committing suicide. This often happens because they become sleep-deprived people who can’t find a way out to deal with what is going on.
6. Only Major Stress Requires Attention
All stress requires attention. It doesn’t matter if it’s a little bit or if it’s too much. Remember, the little bit of stress leads to significant stress.
Even the tiniest of stress can cause a significant upheaval in one’s life, such as one arguing with a family member. Although everything may be forgiven and forgotten later, the fact that the argument took place caused stress.
Stress is not about the event which is taking place; it’s about the feelings we have about the event taking place, which causes stress.
7. Stress is a Bad Thing
In our daily living, we are told over and over stress is a bad thing. Growing up, it was most likely described as a negative experience by the people around us.
Unfortunately, this may have led us to believe that stress is bad for you. But this is not true.
Stress is key to our survival. What stress does for us is:
- Motivates us
- Creates focused energy
- Brings on exciting feelings
- Improve our performance
- Within our coping abilities
Most times, it’s the distress that is caused by stress, which brings on the negative emotions. This occurs in situations that are not enjoyable for us. Such as arguments in the workplace or when we feel overwhelmed.
As I said, it is key to humankind’s survival. In prehistoric times if the caveman did not have a “fight or flight” response, they most likely would’ve been eaten by the cave line.
Although we no longer live in those times, we still need our “fight or flight” response to deal with modern stressors.
“How?” you ask.
If we were to get ill, we would still need to fight that illness by seeking out a doctor. This would help to eliminate the stress the disease is causing.
Some Final Words About Misconceptions Of Stress
Now that you know the common misconceptions of stress, sleep-deprived people should take a chance to get a hold of it before it goes after them. Brain stress balls are a great way to relieve stress. Another way to ease anxiety, which builds up from stress, is by getting a weighted blanket. These blankets are made for sleeping without disturbance at night.
A way to use the stress balls would be, each time you squeeze the ball, you release the thought, which is making you squeeze the stress ball. Doing this at night just before bed, let’s your brain know you’ve dealt with it. It will no longer bother you.
How do you clear up misconceptions of stress to get good sleep at night?
Reading is my favorite thing to do. But other than reading, I enjoy discovering new techniques on how to do something in simpler methods. My daughter likes to call me the Renaissance woman. So I do have to live up to the name.
One of my main issues is sleeping, so I’m always searching for new ways to get a good night sleep, I’m more than happy to share them with you.
My posts are either geared towards pain or self-help. Pain posts because I suffer from ongoing cancer pain. In the past 6 years of my fight with cancer, I have learned many ways to deal with pain, especially when going to bed.
The self-help posts come from my work as a mental health counselor for over 15+ years. My background in counseling training is from UFV and RRU. I also have personal trainer certification from IFA, so I might throw in some exercise posts as well.
Hi Jagi. This is an exciting article. It is also very informative. I actually learned a lot of things I didn’t know about stress. I always believed that stress was a bad thing and never knew if it was misconception until I read this article. I am very pleased with the methods you have recommended for stress relieve. These methods will really help us. Thank you very much for sharing. Best regards
Baraka
Sometimes stress can be a good thing, but still, it should not interrupt our sleep time.
I think we currently live in a world so accelerated where it is very easy to fall into stress and it is very important to learn to identify the symptoms and put aside the wrong concepts, through your article you touch on very important points that can help you understand better the concept as such and working on a solution before it affects it in a major way. I really liked your explanation, in a clear and precise way.
You are right we should remove to understand what’s really happening and why, it would remove so much fear which stops sleep at night.
Thanks for such a thoughtful and complete article about stress and sleep. They are interrelated. Stress is part of life. As my late mother who was a cancer patient said, “it’s not the stress that’ll kill you, it’s how you handle it or don’t handle it that’s the problem.” I agree with what you said about the misconceptions, especially about it being hidden, as the result of no visible symptoms. Good job. Keep up the good work. Take care.
Bob
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts.