**Stress aggravating thought patterns can be deeply rooted in us. But those who recognize them take an important step toward coping with them.**

Lena is stressed. Bills are piling up on her desk, and the notifications on her phone let her know that she still has some messages to answer. She doesn't even want to open her e-mail box anymore. But even if she wanted to, she doesn't have the time: The next online meeting is in 5 minutes anyway. And then yoga after that. "Crap," she thinks to herself, "How am I going to cope with all this stress? I'll never make it!"

## Stress is what we make of it

What Lisa suffers from is called chronic stress - the kind of stress that comes with everyday life, if you let it. This stress is initially triggered by external influences; in research we speak of *external* *stressors*. These can be, for example, high stress at work, anger in the partnership or social pressure.

The effects that stress has on our well-being, however, first arise in the mind. And that can have devastating effects on our health. This was proven, among other things, by a study from 2012, in which 30,000 people were tested for their stress level. It turned out that people who had a lot of stress had a 43 percent higher probability of dying in the following year. The kicker: This only applied to the people who also assume that stress can have a life-threatening effect. The people who dealt calmly with stress did not have a higher risk of dying.

We see: It all depends on the value we place on stress in our lives and how we evaluate it. And that is in our own hands. So it always depends on how we evaluate the stress we have. To quote the psychologist Gert Kaluza, we "actively relate" ourselves to the stressors. It's almost obvious: If you want less stress, you should look at how you deal with your stressors.

## Stress aggravating thought patterns.

For example, if Lisa thinks she'll never make it through her tasks, she's falling into a *stress aggravating thinking pattern*. 

By judging difficult hurdles as insurmountable or mentally avoiding reality ("There's no way that's going to work!"), we make them more difficult in our minds than they may actually be. The problem we face - getting all the week's appointments under one hat, for example - suddenly becomes much bigger than it is because of our evaluation ("That won't work").

So we spice up our own stress stew with a good helping of chili until it almost blows up in our face. Another way to make it even spicier is *negative generalizations*. In doing so, we draw on memories of the past in which something went wrong and coin this experience onto the present. 

Lisa thinks, for example, "Even as a child, it was difficult for me to meet with several friends in one day. Then I won't be able to do that today either." Closely linked to this is *deficit thinking*. Here, we focus on the things we can't do as well as our own perceived weaknesses and assume that we can't complete upcoming tasks because of them anyway.

While we're at it: *negative-consequence* thinking is also a guaranteed way to increase our stress. When we're preparing for an important exam and keep thinking about what will happen if we don't pass it, we don't get our minds free to prepare. We are so busy imagining what it will be like if we don't make it that the task slowly threatens to overwhelm us.

An additional stress aggravating thought pattern is personalizing. Here we relate the negative things to ourselves or our person. Whether we are stuck in a traffic jam, our counterpart is in a bad mood, it's raining again on our day off, or the Internet connection is bad: It's only because of us!

## How can I deal with stress better?

A first step to better deal with stress is to check your *stress aggravating thought patterns*. Because as Jeremy P. Jamieson et al. pointed out in a study, the very attitude we have toward stress changes the way it affects our physical health. 

For example, those participants:in the study who had learned to deal with stress constructively showed much healthier responses to stress. They were less anxious and stressed, more confident, and even their bodies responded differently to stress reactions. Instead of constricting, their heart vessels were more widely open - a reaction that also occurs in situations where people demonstrate courage or feel joy. But how can we now put this into practice?

The next time you are stressed, stop for a moment and try to review how you are evaluating the situation:

- When evaluating, do you use terms like "never," "no way," "always have," and feel like it won't work out anyway?
- Do you think about what you can't do and have never been able to do and stumble because of it?
- Instead of thinking about solving the problem, do you think about what will happen if you don't succeed?
- Do you feel that everything that goes wrong has to do with you?

If you answer yes to one or more of these questions, you already have a good starting point for where you are exacerbating your stress instead of alleviating it. Now take a good look at the thought processes you are having, write them down and leave them for now. Then, when you have a quiet moment and are less stressed, look at them again: Is it really as bad as you think it is?

If you recognize your stress-exacerbating thought patterns, you've already taken an important step toward dealing with stress better. Because it's about putting distance between yourself and these approaches. But this is painstaking work; after all, such thought patterns have been with us for a long time, and our brains are trained to think them over and over again.

The next time you recognize a stress-exacerbating thought pattern in yourself, try to step back. With practice, you can also try replacing them with more positive or at least more neutral thoughts.

Finally, healthy stress management is also an important skill to improve our relationship health. Whether to ourselves or to others: Stress-exacerbating thought patterns also exacerbate tensions in our relationships.


*You know your stress aggravating thought patterns, but you just can't let them go? Stress is taking a toll on your relationship and you'd like to leave it behind? Book a trial session with one of our coaches and talk about it - we're sure to find a solution!*

Sources: 

Abiola Keller et al, "Does the perception that stress affects health matter? The association with health and mortality," Health Psychology, September 2012.

Gert Kaluza, "Calm and confident under stress: the stress competence book: recognizing, understanding, managing stress," 2007. 

Jeremy P. Jamieson et al, "Mind over matter: Reappraising arousal improves cardiovascular and cognitive responses to stress," Journal of Experimental Psychology, August 2012.


Too much stress can have devastating effects on health. When we learn to recognize our stress-exacerbating thought patterns, we learn to deal with it better.

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"I'll never make it!" - Overcoming stress aggravating thought patterns