Your Internet resource for information about the practice of psychology Anything that places a demand on our time and energy produces stress. Also, stress is created by thinking or worrying about these demands, because we spend time with this process, and because thinking about demands often results in psychological distress. Both positive and negative life events and expectations produce stress, although the psychological impact of most negative life events is greater.
Stress is both psychological and physical.
The physical components of stress can include physiological arousal, sleep disturbance, fatigue, gastrointestinal disturbances, headaches, concentration problems, increased expression of irritability and anger, agitation, increased likelihood for illness, and reduced productivity. The impact and the expression of these stress symptoms varies with the individual and the stressful event. The psychological and physical components of stress interact and react with one another to produce additional stress. Stress management training is often presented in corporate training programs by non-psychologists. While some of these programs are informational, they usually do not help you to make the life changes needed to reduce stress substantially.