We are persuaded everyday in one way or another – whether we realize it or not. We are persuaded by advertisements, friends and family, even our bosses and coworkers. The degrees to which the persuasion works varies, but there is one factor that plays a role in each situation: stress.

What is stress?

The interesting part about persuasion and stress is that we tend to separate the two so much that many don’t make the proper association. Stress is the changing of a situation to seem as if it is different than it actually is. When you’re stressed out, your responsibilities seem larger than they are. To stress something is to put more weight on it – literally or figuratively. Everyone is stressed or stressed someone else out each day, and the good news is that you can take this fact and use for your own good.

What does stress do?

What you might not realize at first is that stress changes your perspective on things. While you might think that it’s your work or your responsibilities that change your stress levels, it’s actually your stress that is making work seem like it’s the culprit. Here’s what happens: when you’re under stress, you can’t focus as much. You’re so wrapped up in whatever is ‘causing’ the stress that you start to make decisions based on the stress that you are feeling.

For example, when you’re really stressed, you might respond differently to your friends and family. In persuasion, sales people use the prospect of stress to change the way that you think about their product or their service. What they do is change your thinking so that you’re worried about the product enough that you feel that you have to purchase it. In the boardroom, you might persuade people to your viewpoint by stressing that the company will not do well unless your proposal is followed.

Why people want to avoid stress

All of us want to avoid stress as much as possible – it doesn’t feel good, it doesn’t seem to be helpful or healthy. And studies have proven these facts. While a little stress can help to focus our minds on a goal, too much stress can lead to problems with our health and with our bodies. By creating a situation in which you point out the problems of something that is important to you, you can use the natural avoidance of stress as a way to lead someone to your suggestions.

No one wants to ever feel uncomfortable or be presented with the idea that they could felt uncomfortable. By realizing this fact, you can use it to change the way that people look at what you want.

Using stress in persuasion

When you want to use the idea of stress in your own relationships, you will want to be careful. Many times, people can tell when someone else is trying to take advantage of them in a weaker spot. However, when something is going wrong in a relationship and that is causing stress, introducing ways to change the problems is the best course of action. Because of the stress of the problems, they are much more likely to be accepted and followed as a way to stop the stress.

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