What is the relationship between stress and emotion?
In some ways, stress and emotions are essentially the same thing. When we’re feeling really stressed out we’re actually having an over-arousal of emotion or emotions that are happening that we don’t feel we have the resources to meet them. For example, we could feel so much anxiety or so much fear that it became stressful. We could also feel stressed by having a lot of frustration or anger. These stressful emotional experiences may be easily recognizable for us. On the other hand, most people don’t know we can actually feel stressed when we have an enjoyable emotion, like joy. For example, if you go to a birthday party the entire day and are filled with so much enjoyable emotion, it can actually become stressful.
How do we handle stress?
Stress occurs when we are having a big emotional experience. This is really important to understand because if we want to learn how to manage our stress we actually have to learn how to be with and understand our emotions.
Learn more about your emotional landscape with the Atlas of Emotions and gain insights and strategies for greater emotional equanimity with Cultivating Emotional Balance training.