Grip Stress: Why You’re Not Acting Like Yourself Under Pressure | #126

Discover the difference between regular stress and grip stress - a phenomenon where prolonged stress causes you to act from the least practiced part of your personality. Learn how understanding your Myers-Briggs personality type can help you recognize when you're in grip stress, especially during chronic illness, life setbacks, or extended challenging periods. This guide explains what grip stress looks like for different personality types (with specific focus on INFP), how to identify when you're experiencing it, and practical strategies for managing stress responses. Includes information about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, free personality assessments at 16personalities.com, and self-care techniques for maintaining boundaries during stressful times.

Watch the Video Here or Read the Script below

Stress Versus Grip Stress: When the Suck Sucks Even More

This video is for anyone experiencing prolonged stress due to a chronic illness, a life setback, or just being stuck in the suck. This is the Daily Dose of Dawn at Dawn - videos designed to expand your thinking.

So why do we want to learn this? Because everyone gets stressed. But according to type dynamics from the Myers-Briggs Company, our core characters flip under grip stress.

Welcome back to my Happy Matters Collective. If you're new here, thanks for joining us.

So how did this come into my awareness? Well, I was actually so relieved to discover grip stress was a thing that I cried about it. What? That's so weird. But seriously, knowing yourself is the key to all wisdom, right? Aristotle said that like forever ago. And understanding yourself is personal power. So finding out something that you do is connected to your personality type is almost vindicating.

Do you know your Myers-Briggs letters? I'm an INFP. I learned that when I was working at Disney and they did a presentation. There is a free online quiz that you can do at 16personalities.com. You answer a bunch of questions and they give you four letters that help explain you to you a little bit.

Okay, so grip stress is when we're in the grip of extreme stress, or if it goes on for a long time, we can end up acting from the least practiced part of our personality. So what does that mean?

I was in a situation once where we were grossly understaffed for a considerably long amount of time, and I was caught up in grip stress. And for some people, it might feel like being overwhelmed and behaving or feeling not like yourself, and often feeling bad after you have the little outburst.

For me specifically, as an INFP, it looks like being overly critical or judgmental, micromanaging, controlling behavior, feeling lost or like life has no meaning, sarcasm, and blunt aggressive comments. I'm coming for you.

I remember at the time thinking, "Gosh, I'm just not myself and I don't know what to do about it." Discovering grip stress was a thing was a lot like finding out I had narcolepsy. Like, "Oh, that's why I did those things."

When we learn more about ourselves and we get down deeper into ourselves, we can affect the way we see things, and that affects the way that we respond to the rest of the world, and it can reduce our stress.

So acknowledging it helps - acknowledging that you've been stressed for a long time. Like saying it out loud like, "Wow, this has been going on for a long time. I have been dealing with this. That's hard." It seems silly, but not saying it in many ways is almost denying it to yourself. So acknowledging that you're caught in the grip of stress by itself helps reduce it a little.

Acceptance: "I'm in an avalanche right now. This happened, then this happened, then this happened, then this happened, and I'm dealing with all of them at the same time." And accepting that instead of fighting against it helps you go with the flow. And giving yourself empathy and grace as you go through it helps you even more.

When INFPs are stressed out, they like to be alone. I like to disconnect, go to the beach, be by myself, and be quiet. I have a hard time controlling the things that I say because of my sleep deprivation when I'm stressed out and when I'm overtired. And I can't use that as an excuse to act like a fool. I did that, honestly, for a while. But we grow and we learn.

And so when I'm in the grip of stress - which I avoid, honestly, as much as possible now - I am quiet. I bite my tongue if I have to.

If you're living with chronic illness, if you're in an incredibly challenging phase of your life, if things are going on at work and you're dealing with prolonged stress, if what's happening in politics is driving you crazy right now - find out your Myers-Briggs if you don't already know, and search "grip stress" for your personality type.

It helped me a lot to see that being sarcastic was a part of my personality when I'm under extreme stress. It helped me say, "Okay, so I can't control the fact that I might be sarcastic, but I can control speaking at all."

And as we go through these personal growth things, we find little ways to tweak our lives so that we can give a different response and have a better life.

Let this video be an opportunity for you to look at your own life and see if you are under prolonged stress, and make sure you're holding good boundaries, that you're doing your self-care, and looking for ways to get yourself out of those stressful situations before they crush your soul.

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