What Causes Stress - Part 3

In examining issues relating to stress and what causes it, we have tried to remind ourselves of two things.

One is that many of the stressful experiences and situations that we have in our lives are difficult to avoid or can not be changed to suit us.

Much of our stress may come from our work, in what it consists of and who we work for and with. Unless we are willing to leave our work or find ourselves in the position of being the boss, we may not be able to make any changes in how things at work function.

It is also worth remembering that any kind of work will have stressful aspects to it, as we live in a world where the making of money and gaining material and financial wealth seems to be most important in most people's minds.

This kind of desire, and it is always hard for us to objectively see if it is based on need or greed, will always lead to stress.

The other thing we have briefly put forth in our examination of stress is that if we can not change what we perceive to be the stressful aspects of our daily life, we need to be mindful about what we can do as far as our own actions and attitudes that may not allow stress to build up or weaken stress that has built up already.

It is also useful to remember that stress not only can cause unpleasant sensations, feelings and states of consciousness, but can be a contributing factor in causing more serious health issues such as high blood pressure and such.

So it is important for us to know what it is we can do to not allow stress to build up.

We may benefit when we are mindful about the teachings and techniques relating to the mind and calming it, such as are put forth in Yoga and Buddhism.

One cause of stress that we do not examine so much is our tendency to overindulge in things.

It is very much a part of modern life where we have so much wealth available and so many things to spend it own.

We may be eating too much of the wrong kinds of food, and then watching too much television before going off to bed for the night.

We may be talking too much about meaningless things and at times, in our passion and attachment to those things, find ourselves getting upset and angry.

We may even be too attached to and obsessed with the pleasure of the flesh and think that sex is the most important thing for us to experience each day and want as much of it as we can handle, and unwisely sometimes using stimulants and accessories to achieve the pleasure that we crave and think of as being all important.

The main motivating force behind all of this is a lack of mindfulness and a desire or need to indulge, wanting more and more, instead of learning or making some kind of effort to cut back and be satisfied with less.

In the Yoga teachings, we term such a practice "austerity", meaning the practice of some kind of self - discipline in order to improve ourselves.

Austerity does not mean that we do without, deny ourselves or live a life of poverty.

It means that we learn and understand how to use those mental, bodily and material gifts and attributes that we have in a more wholesome and skilful manner.

If we can do such a thing, we may find that feelings of stress are being weakened.

And at the same time, we want to cultivate the mindfulness and ability to reflect on how many of those things that we desire do we really need and how much does this desire create or add to our feelings of stress.

2005 John C. Kimbrough

(John lives and teaches in Bangkok, Thailand. He can be reached at johnckimbrough@yahoo.com)