Chapter 2. Four Kinds of Stress Symptoms

Think of stress symptoms as divided into four main classes:

Class 1: Some stress symptoms are "FUN" like playing games, eating out at your favorite restaurant, visiting with a friend, listening to the radio or a music CD, daydreaming, sailboarding, going on a vacation, or enjoying a romantic evening with your spouse! Needless to say, we can overdo these "fun" stress symptoms and thus make "good the enemy of the best".

Class 2: Some stress symptoms aren't as much "fun" but nevertheless still "REWARDING" like having a job, writing a book, working on a hobby, practicing the guitar, exercising, eating right and using food supplements, doing volunteer work in the community, or being honest in communication at the feeling level. We can even overdo these "rewarding" stress symptoms! What we're looking for is a balance of "fun" and "rewarding" stress symptoms.

Class 3: Other stress symptoms "SEEM FUN" like engaging in antisocial behavior, being sexually irresponsible, drinking excessively, smoking, using drugs, overeating and "living dangerously", but the end result is always to increase stress levels and thus, even doing these is to overdo them!

Class 4: Finally, some stress symptoms are "NEITHER FUN NOR REWARDING NOR SEEM LIKE FUN" like pain, anxiety, depression, phobias, lack of self confidence, depressed immune system functioning, sexual dysfunction, or debilitating diseases associated with sexual irresponsibility.

Stress Reduction Through Honesty in Communication helps people exchange their Class 3 and some Class 4 stress symptoms for Class 1 and 2, the "fun" and "rewarding" ones and helps people learn the best stress symptom of all, honesty in communication at the feeling level.

While all of the "fun" and "rewarding" stress symptoms can help reduce stress levels, honesty in communication works best of all! It can even make the "fun" and "rewarding" symptoms even more fun and rewarding! It proves its value most however, when we attempt to modify the "seems like fun" and some of those "neither fun nor rewarding nor seem fun" symptoms which are so resistant to change. Regretfully, some of the Class 4 symptoms might be "over the hill", meaning, it might be too late to reverse them.

Learning honesty in communication isn't much fun! It takes a long time, can be very threatening, and is often very stressful and might even seem "painful"! Sometimes the stress of learning to be honest causes articles like these to get "lost" and their principles "forgotten"! That's O.K.! Someday, later on, when your anxiety levels are high enough, it'll be easier to "find" the articles, "remember" some of their principles, and put them to work!

If you find yourself resisting change, please know it's totally understandable and to be expected! After all, it really can be scary the first few times you're honest with yourself and with someone else. Fortunately, it does become a little easier with practice! However, during times of extreme stress, it's easy to slip back into the old comfortable ways of responding and reacting! Remember, that old limbic system is just doing its thing when it disrupts control of rational thought! However, once you've gotten a taste of the joy of emotional honesty, it's really difficult to stay in the old ways too long, unless of course, you've learned to really enjoy the "pleasure of pain".

Next: The Pleasure of Pain