No matter how resilient or smart you may be, there may come a time when you have reached your threshold for Stress.

Your threshold can be triggered by both positive and negative events in life.

Hate Life ?  Are you at your threshold of stress?

There is nothing wrong about reaching one’s threshold of stress tolerance — even when such a limit is triggered by positive events (new job, fiance, promotion, newly wed). If you are highly resilient and determined, you are likely to push yourself to your psychological limits faster.

Anyone reaching a threshold of stress tolerance faces five basic alternatives.

These Five Alternatives are: (1) experience more defensive reactions (2) breakthrough (3) retreat/withdrawal (4) suicide/homicide (5) ‘escape’ through addiction or stop-gap measures.

Five Alternatives 

Five Alternatives at the Threshold of Stress Tolerance

Reaching one’s threshold may occur regardless of how resilient or strong one may be.

(1) Stress:

We might experience escalating stress symptoms (anxiety, anger, physical symptoms, depression, and psychosis) warning us that our past experience and current capacity to cope is being exceeded.

Stress is there to warn us that our present capacities are being exceeded.  However, stress may also appear whenever one deviates from a well beaten path, even for the better.  When this happens, stress may cause the individual to resist the very action that is necessary for better long-term adjustment.  This may include becoming far closer to one’s fiance, spouse or partner; achieving what we desire most in life, or becoming at peace with our self.  (See Stress, Stress Types, and Stress Techniques, as well as Life Purpose when facing resistance).

(2) Breakthrough:

Breakthrough involves using a crisis or setback as an opportunity to grow. When we breakthrough and attain a higher level of adjustment in the three spheres (self definition,love definition, work definition), we often free ourselves from distressful symptoms.  When we can not breakthrough on our own, we should reach out for help from others.

(3) Retreat:

We might withdraw or retreat from the immediate source of Stress.  In the context of a close relationship, withdrawal can take the form of de-escalating closeness with one’s partner, separating or divorcing.  In work, in can take the form of changing schools or jobs, asking for an extension, staying home from work.

(4) Alcohol or Drugs:

We might turn to alcohol or drugs in an attempt to numb our stress symptoms and temporarily escape the pressures of reality.  The problem with this ‘solution’ is that after escaping one returns to the same reality, and often with a hangover or addiction to boot.

Addiction to alcohol or drugs is serious.  Not because it may be illegal, but because it reduces or often eliminates the chances that a person can become and remain sufficiently close to another human being.  Since our happiness is dependent on such a close one on one relationship, those who value his or her own happiness and worth need to think twice about this dangerous form of escape.  Drugs consume individuals – destroying the very self it is meant to relieve.  Drugs and alcohol addiction can also destroy those who attempt to love us.

(5) Suicide/Homicide:

Convinced that we are unable to (1) experience more stress (2) breakthrough (3) withdraw, (4) drugs or alcohol no longer provide enough relief, some turn to (5) suicide, homicide, or other violent and destructive action in desperation.

In the mind of someone contemplating suicide the ‘logic’ behind the decision is compelling.  This explains why some individuals go to extremes to make sure the attempt will be successful.  While it is true that the dead and those under the influence of mind altering symptoms may not suffer, they lose the opportunity to breakthrough and grow beyond the limits of their previous experiences.

Both we and our environment changes rapidly; every year, month, week, day, hour, or even second.  Even if outside circumstances do not change, our ‘subjective’ realities can change.  They can do so in such a way that what may have appeared to be a hopeless or intolerable situation may become acceptable.

Suicide is said to be a permanent ‘solution’ to a temporary problem. That is one reason why it is so tragic.

The crisis or problem that causes one to lose perspective, is always a temporary one. Circumstances do change, and if they do not, our perceptions of them can.

Many of those who failed to commit suicide are living proof that the circumstances that once were seen as insurmountable, could be overcome.  Over the past decades ever since the famed Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco was built, some 900 people have jumped from the scenic bridge to their death.  To do so they have climbed over fences and barbed wire in the hope of making sure that their leap will end in certain death.

Miraculously, however, one out of fifty survived.  The survivors accidentally entered the water vertically as they struck its surface.  The survivors suffered multiple fractures and injuries, but did not die.  A study followed the survivors over two decades and found that not a single one of them tried to kill himself or herself again.

Despite compelling reasoning that lead to the conviction that life was not worth living, when a new perspective opened up, the same lives became worth living.

In retrospect, one has to wonder what would have happened to the rest of the forty-nine, if they lived to develop a new perspective on their lives.

Retreat When Necessary and Breakthrough When Possible

Breakingthrough

For all of us, the goal is to breakthrough when possible and retreat when necessary.  To do this successfully, we must accurately assess external realties, inner capabilities and limitations, and the consequences of our decisions and actions in the three primary spheres of life.

The process of an individual going through maximum distress to reach optimal wellbeing provides a rare opportunity to understand the structure of personality and its functioning.  In the experience of Dr. Ishizuka, the greater the distress, the greater the opportunity for a profound and life changing breakthrough.  In Lifetrack therapy, breakthrough is accomplished through breakthrough intimacy, the process of becoming far closer than ever before to another human being.  If you are single or alone, then you will be helped or encouraged to find someone with whom you can work.

For those seeking more help to overcome stress, see Stress, Overcoming Fear,  Stress Types, and Stress Techniques (four key steps to health).  For those overwhelmed, reach out to others and do not hesitate to seek professional help.  In the United States, one can call 911 if one has suicidal thoughts or go to your nearest emergency room.  In both cases, you will talk to a mental health professional.  A friend or loved one can accompany you. As a health care consumer, you are entitled to ask as many questions as you need, ask for reasons behind any decisions, ask for a second opinion, and be involved in all decisions regarding your care.

While it is true, that most states do have laws requiring that individuals who are in imminent danger of harming themselves be hospitalized for a period of time in order to provide psychiatric treatment (even if they do not want to be hospitalized), in most states this hold period is 72 hours.  This period can be re-assuring when filled with panic or depressive thoughts.  It may be a turning point, one that assists you in the relief of suffering, and opens a door for building a new life of meaning.

One should not take a chance with the beauty and fragility of one’s life.  Taking action by asking for help can lead to new insights and relieve suffering.

There is only one of you here in this world.  You are here for a reason; a beautiful one. Reach out and get help.

Copyright © 2010 Lifetrack Corporation

Visit http://www.PositiveMentalHealthFoundation.com to understand individuals at their best, happiest, and most creative form.  Link to us to promote health and happiness.

Read more about stress symptoms of stress and anxiety, overcoming fear, five stress symptoms (stress types), stress techniques, health and happiness, and insights fromLifetrack therapy or life purpose.

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When we face new challenges that exceed our existing capacity to cope, previously successful patterns of thought, feeling, and action become ineffective.

To breakthrough these obstacles one should follow four key steps:

Four Key Steps

Practice taking 4 key steps.  These steps can help you make a breakthrough to reach higher levels of adjustment.

Each step is important.  The quality of each step depends on what precedes it.  The effectiveness of your action depends on your capacity to decide.  This in turn is based on an accurate perspective and recognition of realities.

When you fail to recognize realities, perspective is biased, and your decision or resulting action does little to reduce distress and build health.

1. Recognition

When experiencing stress one has to recognize which of the five stress types one may be experiencing (anxiety, anger, physical-symptoms, depression or psychosis).

Awareness of Your Inner State

• Is one of the five stress types stronger than the other?
• Are you experiencing a mixture of the five?
• Are the stress symptoms escalating as in the hierarchy of defense?
• As you ignore each of the defenses in turn , does another distressing symptom come to replace it?

Naturally, when faced with physical symptoms, you should first consult a physician to rule out physical illnesses.  Once you have ruled out a physical cause for the illness, take a close look at how you are choosing to live your life in this present moment.  Is there room for improvement in your sense of self?  Close relationships?  Work?

Notice when the stress arises.

Intimacy and Stress

• Are you experiencing stress in the context of a close relationship that is just beginning?
• Are stress symptoms arising in marriage intimacy or as commitment increases?
• Are you frustrated in your capacity to find love?  To keep or build love?
• Do you feel like you get scared or ‘mess things up’ just as you are becoming closer and happier?
• Do you fight just after a nice night out together or finally some time alone?
• Is it as you become closer that you encounter a setback?
• Is there one dimension of intimacy (intellectual-social, emotional, physical-sexual) that is harder for you to become close to than others?
• Is the experience of being intimate with one person in all three dimensions (intellectual-social, emotional, physical-sexual) difficult or impossible?

Achievement and Stress

• Do you find yourself making work excuses to stay home from work?
• Do you dread what you do?
• Are you overwhelmed by work goals, a difficult boss, an impossible job?
• Is there little sense of satisfaction from what you do all day?
• Are you always thinking of work first?
• Do you only feel a sense of mastery at work and feel that time spent elsewhere is wasted? Are you seeking your purpose in life through work alone?
• Do you think that when you achieve a goal, you will allow yourself to be happy?

Self and Stress

• Are you filled with negative thoughts or a situation that replays itself over and over in your head?
• Do you feel stuck in a role that you do not care for?
• Do you feel anxious as you lose your attachment to unhappy life events?
• Are you ‘in touch,’ ‘at peace,’ or ‘in control’?
• Do you experience outbreaks of anxiety, anger, physical-symptoms, depression or psychosis for seemingly small things?
• Do you feel out of control or filled with underlying anxiety?

Recognition: By placing our experiences in the context of the three spheres, we can improve our ability to recognize and understand our subjective response to life’s experiences.  When stress signals surface it is important to take this first step promptly, or the stress signals may escalate on the hierarchy of stress.

2. Perspective

Once you recognize that you are experiencing stress symptoms in one or more of the three spheres, you will need to gain perspective.

To do that effectively you have to first accept realities (positive and negative).

That is you need to accept the situation ‘as is’.  To be in the moment with whatever is occurring rather than denying its presence, wishing it could be otherwise, or thinking of anything that you could have done to make it any different from it the present.

When the current moment is painful, you may wish to avoid this at all cost.  But, if you wish to breakthrough you will have to come to terms with the present.  To do so, allow yourself to feel the emotion, even a painful one.

When you have loved, or worked hard for something and are disappointed by loss, it is natural to feel pain and hurt.  When you have lost a loved one, loss is particularly painful. Although some grieving is important and necessary, when we replay the loss over and over in our mind we suffer over and over.

Accept the Present

To change stress into an opportunity for breakthrough, we accept the current challenge, however difficult. If we do not, we only create more anger, anxiety, physical symptoms, depression or psychosis.  Only after acceptance of the negatives can we take positive action (action not consumed by stress or negative energy).

When we learn to accept the moment, even a painful one, a new perspective arises. The challenge then becomes an opportunity for breakthrough.

Learn to Stop Negative Thoughts Replaying in you Head

When you replay the events that triggered stress in your mind over and over, you increase or accentuate symptoms of stress.

To calm the mind, you need to recognize that those negative thoughts are not you. Thoughts are subjective and respond to something that may be occurring in your life, but thoughts are not the objective event, nor are they you.

When a negative thought arises, look at it as if you were watching it from the outside. Do not judge the thought.   The thought is a subjective interpretation of an objective event. It is not the event itself, nor is it you (you are something far greater).

While you cannot always change your external environment or a difficult reality in your life, you can change the way you think, feel, and act about those same realities.  In this area (the subjective response), you alone have control.

By accepting the moment, however difficult, you can change the inner subjective experience of pain and suffering.   If you can learn to accept the inevitable negatives in your life and increase the positives, you can take full advantage of your leverage over the subjective factor.

Perspective: By accepting reality ‘as is’ one can take positive action from a state of strength.  By building one’s three spheres despite the inevitable negatives in one’s life, one can emerge from a challenge transformed.

Track Inner Health and Happiness to Gain Perspective

For those experiencing distress, tracking oneself (in each of the three spheres) and viewing graphs of one’s progress, can help to improve one’s ability to recognize patterns in thoughts, feelings, and actions over time.  Tracking helps you to accept what is without replaying it over and over.

The act of self rating helps you control the inner subjective experience of life that contributes to our happiness or distress.  As one rates oneself (this takes 5 minutes), one can better understand and accept the present realities.  One can use the data to view graphs on our inner state.  In doing so, we can look back and gain perspective on past patterns.

We rate ourselves to make the present more alive.  To become conscious of the subjective factor and the areas of our life that contribute to well-being.  Even if you may not yet know how to interpret the scores, the very act of rating psychological spheres that determine your inner health can open a new perspective.

Tracking inner health is a tool.  Accept the ‘bad’ you cannot change.  Build on the ‘good.’

To build inner health, we must gain perspective on our whole life, to learn to accept the inevitable negatives in any one sphere, and to increase the positives.

Stress Exercises to Gain Recognition and Keep Perspective

If you want to track yourself, use the Lifetrack positive health adjustment sheet found in the Ottawa journal download LifeTrackTherapy (3 MG).

3. Decision

By asking yourself where you stand in relation to the five alternatives, you can improve your ability to breakthrough to higher levels of well-being.

Will the decision you are about to make, move you towards:

• Breakthrough?

• Withdrawal?

• Addiction?

• Stress?

• Death?

  Breakthrough when possible, withdraw when necessary.

4.  Action

After acceptance of the situation ‘as is’ and recognition that we are far more beautiful and profound than the anxiety, anger, physical-symptoms, depression or psychosis that may pervade us, we gain the perspective on the whole of our life and not just one life event.

We emerge capable of making decisions in a state of  health.  Effective action follows.

Effective action comes after successfully taking the other three steps.   If you have an accurate recognition of what builds health, a more informed perspective, decision, and effective action will flow.  In other words, if you have recognized what determines your well-being, gained perspective on how to achieve and maintain it, and have decided to take steps to change, then you are ready for effective action.

Action that comes from acceptance of a situation is stronger than action driven from any negative energy or positive hopes for future happiness.

Copyright © 2010 Lifetrack Corporation

Visit http://www.PositiveMentalHealthFoundation.com to understand individuals at their best, happiest, and most creative form.  Link to us to promote health and happiness.

Read more about stress (symptoms of stress and anxiety), five stress symptoms (stress types), stress techniques, and alternatives of the threshold of stress (don’t hate life).

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Since symptoms of distress can be overwhelming, the Lifetrack model categorizes stress symptoms (including psychiatric symptoms) into 5 broad categories and teaches us how to recognize them as escalating warning signals that the mind is overwhelmed by the challenges it faces.

According to Dr. Yukio Ishizuka, stress is not a disease or the cause of suffering but a natural and inevitable consequence of the interaction between one’s pattern of personality and life’s challenges.

Stress signals us that our ways of thinking, feeling and acting — our personality — is inadequate to handle the challenges we currently face.  The symptoms of stress often will persist and escalate until we are forced to pay attention.

Five Stress Types

At different moments in life, one may encounter symptoms of stress. One can experience anxiety, anger, physical symptoms, depression or psychosis — or a mixture of all of them. They can be triggered by an event, or our perception of an event, in our self, intimacy or achievement spheres.

All signals of stress have the same mission: to force you to reach out for help.  It is important to recognize that regardless of how bright, strong and resilient you may be, if the challenges you face are more than you can handle at one time, any of the five symptoms may manifest. Which symptoms you experience depends on your innate characteristics, vulnerabilities, and earlier experiences of successful or unsuccessful coping.

Anxiety

Anxiety can mobilize you to do what needs to get done. However, when you are constantly anxious, you may be getting a signal that something is wrong.

Anger

If you are forced to do what you feel too difficult or uncomfortable, irritability and anger may join or replace anxiety. While anger can mobilize you to take action, when out of control it becomes counter-productive.

Physical Symptoms

If you are unwilling or unable to accept that you are under stress, physical symptoms may be the only way to force you to slow down. Even if you believe that your illness is psychologically induced, it is always important to seek medical advice.

Depression

A depressed mind shuts down, protecting itself much like a fuse designed to blow when overloaded. Depression usually forces people to reach out. Efforts to achieve “the impossible” are replaced by preoccupations with the distressful symptoms of depression.

Psychosis

When other distress signals such as depression are ignored or not tolerated, psychosis may be triggered. Thoughts, feelings and actions become incoherent, confused, inappropriate, ambivalent or paralyzed.

Someone who experiences psychotic symptoms loses his or her capacity, to think, feel and act coherently and would not be able to recognize the symptoms of psychosis nor to rate himself or herself until medication has returned the mind to normal functioning.

Psychotic symptoms must be treated by professional help.  Medications are essential to control such symptoms.  Once controlled, the individual can then return to the same challenge of becoming closer to another human being, developing a sense of self or achievement.

The Hierarchy of Stress

The five stress types (anxiety, anger, physical-symptoms, depression and psychosis) can sometimes be experienced as a hierarchy of stress.

Hierarchy of Stress 

As a first defense the mind may experience anxiety.  If anxiety is not heeded, the mind may then experience anger.  Should that too not be heeded, physical symptoms may develop.   For some depression could follow.  And for others, psychosis.

Not all individuals experience a hierarchy of symptoms.  Some have a mixture of the five. Others have a clear ‘preference’ for one of the five stress types that seems to effective in slowing them down.  Each time a symptom works in the past or is successful at stopping us from a stressful situation, it may become embolden, and re-occur at times seeming to manifest itself as a disease.

Copyright © 2010 Lifetrack Corporation

Visit http://www.PositiveMentalHealthFoundation.com to understand individuals at their best, happiest, and most creative form.  Link to us to promote health and happiness.

Read more about stress (symptoms of stress and anxiety), overcoming fear, five stress symptoms (stress types), stress techniques, and alternatives of the threshold of stress (don’t hate life) and balance them in a perspective of health and happiness.

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