What are the aspects of psychological stress?

Judging from our practical experience in front-line psychological counseling, there has never been a unified classification standard for psychological stress. It is essentially the product of an imbalance between external environmental requirements and individual tolerance. When it falls on a specific person, it is often caused by multiple sources that are intertwined and cannot be completely separated.

Xiao Zhang, an operator from a large factory I received last month, even his eye sockets were blue when he first entered the consulting room. He said that he had been suffering from insomnia for almost three weeks. When we talked about it more, we found that his pressure was not from a single source at all: his performance had been stuck at the passing line for three consecutive months, the department was still announcing layoffs, the rent had just increased by 500 last month, and next month's mortgage and parents' medical examination fees had to be prepared in advance. This kind of pressure that is directly linked to survival guarantees is the first thing most people can perceive. To put it bluntly, it is the reality of "to survive, you must live a not so bad life." Real requirements range from the final week of students and the KPIs of office workers to the childcare and pension expenses of middle-aged people, all fall into this category. Many people think that "having money can solve this kind of pressure." In fact, this is not true. I have seen executives with an annual salary of one million die overnight because they are worried about the failure of the company to go public. Material desires will increase with the increase in income. There is no fixed threshold for this kind of pressure.

What is more grueling than this real pressure to survive is actually the hidden pressure in social relationships. A stay-at-home mother came to consult me ​​before. She shed tears as she talked, saying that she had taken care of the house in an orderly manner, her child had passed the top ten of her grade in the final exam, and her husband had never said that she did not make money. However, every time a relative got together, someone would always criticize her and say, "Your husband works so hard at work, so you enjoy staying at home." Her own mother also always urged her to find a job so as not to lose touch with society. She couldn't really fall out with these people, and she couldn't even eat after holding it in for a long time. This kind of pressure is like a blunt knife cutting flesh. You can't even tell what the other person did wrong, but it's like wearing a wet coat that hasn't been wrung out. It sticks to your body and feels heavy. Issues such as taking sides in the workplace, being ostracized by peers in school, and urging marriage and childbirth in the family are all essentially pressures caused by individuals being coerced by social relationships. , There is still controversy in the academic circles about the cause of this kind of pressure. Some scholars believe that it is the product of social discipline, which can be eliminated as long as they do not care about the evaluation of others. Others believe that humans, as social animals, inherently need social recognition. This kind of pressure is an inevitable cost of evolution, and there is no conclusion yet.

There is another kind of pressure that is most easily ignored, which is hidden in people's demands on themselves. Last year, a student who had just entered the top 2 came here and said that he was out of breath every day. Although he was already the "proud one" in everyone's eyes, he always felt that he was not as good as his classmates in the same department: he was still correcting experimental data after others published core journals, and his resume was still being rejected when others got a summer offer from a top investment bank. Even though the counselor told him that his comprehensive ranking was already in the top 10% of his grade, he still felt that "I am not good enough." This kind of pressure caused by self-expectation does not even require external triggers. Sometimes, just sitting there and thinking about future requirements can make my chest feel tight. This kind of pressure is essentially at work in the internal friction of many perfectionists.

You will find that when it comes to specific cases, very few people have only one type of stress. For example, Xiao Zhang has to bear the pressure of KPI to survive, and at the same time, he has to deal with his parents' pressure to get married three times a week. He also feels that he has failed to achieve a management position at the age of 30. The three pressures are stacked together, just like pouring water into a water glass. No one will overflow when poured together. Of course, some people think that these are not a big deal and they can be happy earning 4,000 yuan a month. Therefore, there is no unified measurement standard for stress. Your own feeling of being out of breath is the only basis for judgment.