Responding to Stress Triggers

Stress is one of the most common and widespread workplace concerns, and more often can affect solopreneurs than other workplace employees. It can be caused by external sources or internal ones, but regardless of its source, stress can lead to serious health problems. Stress triggers are often difficult to identify because they're often subtle and hidden beneath the surface. 

This is especially true for us teachers business owners that may have our teacher work habits seeping into our business productivity. 

I see you perfectionism and overworking…you’re not getting by this time.  

However, understanding your personal stress triggers can help you manage them better in the future.

What are stress triggers?

Stress triggers are anything that initiates your stress response. To learn more about stress and the stress response cycle, check out this article here. Triggers can be physical, mental, or emotional, and come from inside you (internal) or outside of you (external). Stress triggers can also be positive or negative in nature--it's not just about avoiding negative situations, but also identifying what is going on inside your body, so that you can create balance.

Recognizing your stress triggers

Stress triggers can be anything from a sound, to a smell, to a situation. They might be physiological (like an illness or injury), psychological (a feeling of anxiety) or situational (like being in the middle of traffic). 

In order for us to understand our stress responses better, it's important that we recognize what our own personal stress triggers are so that we can work with them as easily as possible. This is where the Teacher Life Balance System comes in. We need to have space to reflect on our current coping mechanisms and how we deal with stress triggers and certain stress responses before we can explore new ways to cope.

A stress trigger is anything that initiates the fight, flight, freeze or fawn response.

As we talked about briefly in our What is Stress? article earlier this month, stress triggers are anything that initiates the fight, flight, freeze or fawn response. They're unsettling situations or unexpected events that can be either physical or emotional. Stress triggers can be big (like getting fired) or small (like seeing an ex-boyfriend in line at Starbucks). 

As we discussed earlier, triggers can also be a smell that reminds you of something from childhood, something you thought was gone or didn’t bother you. And that is what can be so frustrating about triggers, they can seem to blindside you. But, self-awareness and compassion for yourself and your life experience can really help your stress and reactions feel more manageable.

Just about any situation can be a stress trigger for someone; it all depends on how they react to it and how well they deal with it. Some people have more sensitive nervous systems than others, which means their threshold for what causes them stress is lower than others'. 

Take a moment to think about what points in your life you have felt especially stressed. Can you backtrack to find a specific trigger?

You can learn to develop resilience to stress triggers.

Stress triggers are unavoidable, and there's no way to completely eliminate them from your life. If you have read any of my articles or my Instagram (@jewelsofteaching) posts, then you know I bring this fact up whenever I can.

You can, however, learn how to develop resilience in the face of these triggers. That means learning how to manage your stress responses so that they don't take over and make you feel overwhelmed or stuck.

The first step is understanding what happens when we experience a stress trigger: our cortisol levels rise as our body prepares for fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. This response is important because it kicks us into action so we can deal with whatever threat is at hand; however, if we're constantly under threat--or if the threat is physically less than your perception (remember the lion from our blog post on the different stress response cycles)--this response will keep happening even though it doesn't need to be activated every single time something stressful happens in our lives. This can lead not only to feeling overwhelmed, but also experiencing physical symptoms such as headaches or muscle aches that aren't caused by anything else but chronic stress responses!

We take the time to reflect on our stress triggers and responses in order to mitigate chronic stress. But, we have to make sure we recognize any of the chronic stress that may have transitioned over from our lives in the classroom. Overworking ourselves, compassion fatigue, anxiety about admin or parent responses, feeling the weight of responsibility for others’ well-being can cause us not to recognize the chronic stress we may be experiencing in our businesses too.

How to manage your stress responses

In order to manage your stress responses, you need to first understand what triggers them. Hence, this article to support you in that endeavor. Once you are aware of what triggers your response and how it makes you feel physically (e.g., tightness in the chest), then it is easier for you to recognize when this happens again. 

Take time (and it may be more than one sitting) to journal or reflect on when you have been triggered and what led to the response. Then take some time to recognize how you tried to cope with stress and if it helped or hindered your progress. 

How do I identify my stress triggers?

Stress triggers are anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, unhappy, or stressed. They can be a variety of things: an unpleasant interaction; a deadline; or even taking on too much at one time and becoming overwhelmed or paralyzed by the next steps.

Stress triggers aren't just external factors--they can also come from within yourself. For example, if you have high expectations for yourself and feel like everything needs to be perfect all the time, then this can become a stress trigger when something doesn't go according to plan

In this next section, we will dive further into examples of stress triggers and see if this can help you identify triggers in your own life and business.

Feel free to write any down that comes to mind while you are reading, so that you can use this list when it comes to the Explore step of the Teacher Life Balance System. 

And don’t forget, you have access to the Free Stress Relief Toolkit here where every month we add a new free resource to help you manage your stress and build better work life balance.

Types of Stress Triggers: Work-related Stress Triggers

• Work overload
• Lack of control and/or pressure to perform
• Long hours, especially if you're not getting paid for them
• Conflict with co-workers or bosses (especially if it's over something that could be easily resolved)
• Unreasonable deadlines and expectations, which may include work tasks that are repetitive in nature and not challenging enough to stimulate your mind or creativity.

Types of Stress Triggers: Social Stress Triggers

The first type of stress trigger is social. This includes relationships with family, friends, colleagues and bosses; clients/customers; the community at large.

It's important to know that there are two kinds of social stressors: external and internal. External ones are things like a relationship ending or someone being critical towards you (or vice versa). Internal ones include your own thoughts about other people in your life--for example, worrying about how much they care about what you're doing or thinking about how much time they spend with their friends instead of spending more time with yours.

Types of Stress Triggers: Ourselves as a Stress Trigger

There are many types of stress triggers that can cause you to experience stress. However, one of the most common is yourself and how you respond to external factors.

One example of this would be when someone asks for your opinion on something and you feel compelled to give it even though it may not be what they want to hear. In this situation, your desire to help or please others may cause them more harm than good because they don't want advice from someone who doesn't know what they're talking about!

Another example could be when someone has been working on something very hard for a long time without any results yet (e.g., writing their dissertation). The person becomes frustrated with himself because he thinks he should have done better by now; however, instead of recognizing that there was no way around this problem due its complexity level being higher than his current skill set level at this point in time - causing frustration levels rise even further than normal levels due high expectations placed upon self during past experiences where similar tasks were completed successfully despite being just as difficult as current task seems today...

Types of Stress Triggers: Trauma-Based Stress Triggers

When you experience a trauma, it can affect your ability to deal with stress. For example, if you had a car accident and were in the hospital for weeks, that may cause a lot of stress in your life. The same thing goes for other types of traumatic events like losing someone close to you or watching someone get hurt. The key is to remember that your body may remember and respond to stress even when you feel like you have moved past this event.

Trauma-based stress triggers are not always obvious but they can still be very powerful and make us feel overwhelmed by emotions such as fear or sadness when we see something similar happen again (for example: seeing an ambulance). We might also experience flashbacks related to the event which can make it hard for us to concentrate on anything else until we feel better again (this is called dissociation). 

There is so much more to the complex trauma based triggers than I can fit in here. If you are having difficulties with trauma or have experienced a traumatic event, please seek help and support from a licensed counselor. 

Understanding stress triggers and how your body reacts to them is essential for long-term health in business.

You're stressed out. It's normal, but it's not good for you.

Stress is a normal part of life. Everyone experiences stress in some form or another--from work deadlines, relationship difficulties, financial issues and more. No one escapes it completely! But how do we deal with these triggers? How can we learn to manage them better? Understanding what causes your body to react negatively when it comes under pressure is essential for long-term health in business.

Understanding Stress Triggers & How Your Body Reacts To Them Is Essential For Long-Term Health In Business:

• Recognize the signs of stress before they manifest themselves into something bigger than they need to be (and before someone else notices).
• Learn how your body reacts when faced with stressful situations so that you know what signals are coming from within rather than just reacting based on external cues alone (like being late because traffic was terrible). 

Wrap Up

The best way to deal with stress triggers is to understand them. Once you're aware of your responses, you can learn how to manage them and control them more effectively. 

And don’t forget to sign up for the Stress Relief Toolkit, so that you can stay up to date on our future articles on how to respond to stress triggers in a way that works best for your life. As a subscriber, you’ll find exclusive access to emailed tips, resources, and other discounts!

P.S. If you are interested, I am presenting at a Free Teacher Business Owner Conference called Spring Fling on March 25-27 with a bunch of other wonderful teacherpreneurs to give you tips and tricks for upleveling your business. Get your seat while you can!