From my article The Causes of Stress and How to Overcome Them at Dumb Little Man:

“Stress is one of the greatest causes of illness in our society today. It is possible that as much as 70% of all trips to the doctor can be attributed to stress. Stress is the great pretender, mimicking or contributing to nearly every ailment imaginable. In the interest of your own personal development, you need to be able to identify your sources of stress so you can control them.

In order to get control over your stress, something in your life must change. We all live with a certain degree of stress in our lives, but there is a point at which it becomes unmanageable, causing physical and mental illness.

Causes of stress can be broken down into internal and external stressors. External stressors are those things which we have no control over. Physical stressors can include a noisy environment, being overly hot or too cold, or feeling confined.

Major changes in your life can also cause stress, such as a lost job, the birth of a child, or a death in the family. Even that promotion you have been wanting will cause stress. Daily inconveniences create stress in our lives: rudeness of others, unreasonable rules at work or inefficient business practices, commuting, and deadlines.

Finally, you also have personally imposed stressors, such as a negative attitude, perfectionism, setting unrealistic expectations, self-criticism. As you can see, stress is hitting you from all angles.

Stress manifests itself in various ways, but there are three main categories where stress will begin to appear.”

Read the rest of The Causes of Stress and How to Overcome Them.