How Your Personality Affects the Way You Deal With Stress

An individual’s personality type affects the way they cope with stressors in their lives. Some people cope fine with levels of stress that others would find absolutely crippling. Our reactions to stress are partly inborn and partly learned throughout our lifetime. Everyone reacts to stress, it just depends on the level of stress that you can handle before symptoms arise. Some people seem to cope fine with a multitude of stressful situations, but even they will eventually react once the pressure becomes too much for them. There is no weakness in the level of stress that one can handle, but note, if one cannot handle stress at all, it’s best to seek help and resources to aid them as a stressful life is not healthy at all.

As we live our everyday lives, stress builds up until it overflows and symptoms appear. If you release some stress out every so often then it is less likely to overflow, and no matter what your personality, you will cope better.

How do you reduce the pressure?

There are many different ways to reduce stress, the way that will work best for you will depend on your personality. Some people find regular relaxation/meditation is the best way for them to relieve stress, whilst others find that taking part in energetic sports works best for them. Whether you relax or work out will depend on your personality and your approach to life in general. One thing is certain, we all need to keep an eye on our stress levels and work consistently to reduce them because stress-related illnesses are common and emotional problems caused by poorly controlled stress levels can affect us all whether we are the sufferer ourselves or affected by a close colleague/friend or relative’s problem.

Which personality type below fits you best?

Perfectionist:

Everything must be perfect, you just can’t leave it alone. If you make even one little mistake you want to repeat the whole process and you dislike your routine being disrupted.

You do all your work to your own, self-imposed, superhuman standards and you are likely to get upset when others do not do their job properly and may take over for them, increasing your workload. You can’t rest until the job is done to your satisfaction, no matter how long it takes.

Perfectionists create their own stress by being too hard on themselves. They need to be more realistic and forgiving of themselves. You will probably find that relaxation helps, just let yourself have time off, build leisure time and relaxation breaks into your daily routine.

Stimulus Seeker:

You habitually take risks as you are easily bored and dislike routine.

You are full of ideas and projects are easy to start but you don’t often finish the project off completely as you find the little details time-wasting.

Stimulus seekers thrive on risk. They are the bungee jumpers, fast car drivers, mountain climbers. Their attention span can be short as they are racing on to the next thing. These people tend to smoke or drink too much and forget to take care of themselves properly. Often these types respond well to taking part in energetic sports, to burn off the tension.

Anxious Personality

You feel that people take advantage of you and you feel a sense of vulnerability as you just can’t say “No”.

Small disagreements are likely to upset you and because you lack self-confidence, you are unlikely to speak up and stand up for yourself. You are likely to say “Sorry” easily even if it wasn’t your fault meaning that you bottle up anger so well that even you don’t know it’s there.

You are probably too nervous to make a change, even though you realise it would help you.

Anxious individuals have poor self-esteem. They often take on jobs that are not demanding enough and then become bored and frustrated. They can spend so much time avoiding things that they miss out on living a full life. Although relaxation and/or meditation is helpful for this group, it should be combined with methods to build self-esteem. A few hypnotherapy sessions can do wonders to build up self-confidence and the effects can be life-changing.

Ambitious Personality:

You are totally dedicated to anything you begin and you always finish anything you start as this achievement for yourself and for others to see is important.

You may dream about work and work is more important than a social life. You may find that you do two or more jobs at once and feel that relaxation is a waste of time (there is an urgency for every task, and never enough time). Workaholic much? You may even forget meals sometimes as you can focus on tasks to the total exclusion of everything else. People getting in your way and slowing you down can make you angry.

Ambitious individuals are often the most stressed, but the least ready to do anything about it. They deny that they are stressed and just keep going until ill health forces them to stop. These are power-driven people, often somewhat aggressive when crossed as they need to be in control. A combination of relaxation and active leisure pursuits can help here, as well as sticking to a routine that includes time out away from work-related activities.

Self-Assessment

You may be ‘clearly‘ one type or you could be a mixture of types. Once you recognise certain qualities about yourself, you may be able to find a better balance, understanding and harmony within yourself. You may have noticed that all these personality types are driven by fear, and the reaction to fear is stress. If you recognise yourself here then do something now to make the changes you need to make to help yourself to a better, happier life.