(Before reading this post, it would be helpful to read the posts entitled “Understanding the Stress Response” and “What Triggers the Stress Response?”)

It is important to learn how to identify your stress response because the more stress you can identify, the more stress you can alleviate, and the less you will suffer the negative impacts of stress.

There are only two states to consider – your executive functioning or “best” state and your stress response “survival” state.

Here are some ways you can tell which state you are experiencing. (I’m not trying to list everything, just giving you the general idea of each).

In your best state, you’re generally relaxed, optimistic and feel capable of achieving your goals.

You can be engaged, energized, playful, orderly, connected, capable, inspired, kind, efficient, flowing, clear headed, or at peace.  Best state feelings include joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe, & love.

In your survival state, you’re likely to be tense, pessimistic and feel incapable of achieving your goals.  You can be confused, disorganized, indifferent, discouraged, harsh, agitated, obsessive or exhausted.  Survival feelings include fear, anger, sadness, insecurity, feeling isolated, humiliated, worthless, frustrated, resentful, paralyzed or vulnerable.

A large part of being able to release stress is being able to identify which state you are in throughout the day.  Begin to pay attention to when you’re feeling tense, pessimistic & incapable and when you’re feeling relaxed, optimistic and capable.

3 Common Types of Stress Responses:  Nagging, Disengaged & Full-blown

Identifying stress can be easy in some cases, while some forms of stress are harder to recognize. The following will help you identify more of your stress responses.

The Nagging Stress Response

This is when something just keeps bugging you.  It jumps into your thoughts throughout the day and may keep you awake at night.  It could be something someone said or something that happened earlier.  Basically, it’s an undercurrent of unrest.

A Nagging stress response can be so subtle that it doesn’t even seem like a stress response, it may just seem like something that needs to be figured out.  The key is… if it is nagging you, it’s somehow connected to a stress response.  That’s not to say that what you’re thinking about is invalid.  It’s just that the “nagging” is being driven by a stress response.  Once you release the stress response, you will be back in the executive functioning part of the brain where you will see the situation more clearly and have the tools and perspective to find the best solution.

The Disengaged Stress Response

We are either engaged in life, or, disengaged and analyzing it.  When you’re engaged, you’re doing something fun like discussing an interesting topic, engrossed in an important project, or being aware of feeling love and appreciation.

Basically, you’re just having a good time.  Then, something happens, and you disengage enough from whatever you’re doing to think about what’s happening instead of being part of what’s happening.

It can go something like this:  You’re in a conversation with someone and then you start to wonder why they are saying what they are saying.  That’s when you’ve switched from listening to what’s being said to wondering why it’s being said.

Or, you’re having a blast doing something and then you suddenly become self-conscious and your focus shifts from having fun to wondering about what you said, what you did, or how you look.  You’re no longer engaged in having fun, you’re busy analyzing yourself.

In both cases, you’ve switched from executive functioning mode to survival mode because something triggered a stress response.  It can be so subtle that it’s hard to notice, but the one thing you can count on is that you’re no longer having a good time.  You’re watching and wondering.

The Full-blown Stress Response

It’s not hard to identify your stress response with it’s a full-blown stress response because it is not a subtle shift that you barely notice.  It’s the type of stress response that takes you out of the game.  With the other two types of stress response, you can feel as though “you’re having a stress response”.  With a full-blown stress response, it’s more like “the stress response has you”.

The feelings that accompany a full-blown stress response are intensified, which causes us to be more likely to say or do things that we would not normally say or do.

Some of the actions that can accompany a full-blown stress response are yelling, slamming doors, or storming out of a room.  And, if you are in full-blown a stress response and not doing those types of things, it means you are able to exhibit a huge amount of self-control.