It depends on the event. The triggering event can affect different areas of our lives: our physical health, our mental health, and our emotions... In the case of stress, for example, strenuous physical activity, exceeding one's actual physical capacity, can generate it. This can happen even to an Olympic athlete, who may experience periods of stress under specialized training. The interesting thing here is the physical capacity they develop, one of the reasons that can evoke admiration and fascination in their spectators for feats that leave a lasting impression. Thus, here we have established the development of "willpower," which allows us to persevere despite circumstances demanding physical efforts we initially couldn't control.
But if we shift the focus to a person suffering from obesity who wants to lose weight, whether to improve their health or physical appearance, the willpower to change their habits is completely different from that of an Olympic athlete. In my environment, I often hear people who always plan to lose weight but end up postponing it. Other people, when they feel love or affection for someone, start exercising more frequently; the appearance of that person can be reason enough to develop the willpower they initially lacked.
Those who carry their greatest weight mentally owe it to constant negative thoughts or overthinking that leads nowhere. This, I believe, is more associated with the clarity with which they perceive themselves and their environment, their biases or limiting beliefs, their assumptions, the work or social environment, and even comfort, all of which can generate mental discomfort and stress. In this case, it can be complicated to offer advice, because ideas, like emotions, can lodge in our minds for a long time; they are not a simple overnight change. Simply put, when it comes to mental situations, I think what can be done is to complement them and work on the other two aspects, the physical and the emotional, because being so focused on just one aspect, or hyperactivity in just one (in this case, the mental), will tend to perpetuate stress. By engaging in physical and emotional activities, mental overactivity can be stopped. If successful, the person may experience something like: "I didn't know I could develop such incredible strength, I feel full of vitality. I was so immersed in my thoughts that I didn't realize how my body could experience such a positive change."
And finally, the emotional aspect. People can also lack the emotional capacity to cope with stressful situations. The most frequent case to illustrate this is that of romantic breakups. A breakup can trigger changes that are difficult to manage at first, and this is normal, in the sense that it's not easy to separate from the person we love and cared for deeply. But here we return to the mental aspect: emotional overactivity due to the breakup. I believe the person needs to dedicate themselves to other activities, to expose themselves to various ones; it's not about finding the "ideal" and "absolute" activity on the first try, but about exploring to find them. It wouldn't be wise to constantly change activities either, because the person could experience the strange feeling of "nothing satisfies me," entering another emotional problem: "Since they left my life, nothing has been the same." But despite this, there has to be a beginning, a beginning of something completely different to live new experiences. Over time you will be able to determine what works and what doesn't, because persisting in the same emotional state makes change difficult.
I'll write a post. I hope you don't find my comment overwhelming.
Not overwhelming at all and very thought provoking. I look forward to reading your post as well.
I like that in your last paragraph you touch on some ideas of distraction from the pain of loss. This could go for grief too. I feel like it is effective, but more of a stop gap to survive the immediate loss, which still has to be addressed later at some point. Hopefully when we are in a better emotional position to address it.
I also like that you highlight the physical connections to stress. We often fail to connect the mental and physical in our bodies despite the fact that the are fully entwined.