Why does stress affect us?

Why does stress affect us?

Gladeana McMahon (Life Coach) gives expert video advice on: What are the signs of stress?; What is stress?; How does stress affect us? and more...

People allow stress to get to them, because when you think about it, you have to ask yourself what triggers the stress in the first place, and we have a very simple model that we worked in. We said, "Imagine a pair of scales, and they're nicely balanced. Now, when they're balanced, you might be a really busy person, but because they're balanced, all that is is pressure. Lots of people love pressure. They hate it when life is too boring. When the scales are not balanced, that means the demands that have been made of you are greater than the resources you have to cope, then your body perceives all this as a threat, and when that happens, it starts acting as if you are in real danger. If you think that the stress response is about survival, putting your foot on the zebra crossing and legging it, it's not really about when your boss says, "Oh, can you stay until seven o'clock and finish that report?" The problem is that our brain doesn't differentiate. It just thinks, "Lots of demands, I can't cope, I'm stressed."