The Difference between Stress and Culture Stress

When I wrote the blog post about having a rough week, I used the word stress several times. I realized later what I really meant was culture stress.

Everyone deals with stress. It’s a fact of life. Culture stress is like stress on steroids and there is nothing you can do to get away from it. All you can do is learn to manage it so it doesn’t manage you.

Miriam Webster defines stress as:

constraining force or influence: such as a physical, chemical, or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension and may be a factor in disease causation; strain, pressure.

a state resulting from a stress;  especially  :one of bodily or mental tension resulting from factors that tend to alter an existent equilibrium 

In our society today, stress is common. We live stressful, busy lives. We have stress at work, stressful schedules, financial pressure that adds to our stress. Slowing down and reducing stress takes focus and intention. 

Culture shock is defined in Miriam Webster as: 

a sense of confusion and uncertainty sometimes with feelings of anxiety that may affect people exposed to an alien culture or environment without adequate preparation

Most people have heard of culture shock. To be fair, a person can experience culture shock moving from one part of the US to another. I’ve heard it’s worse when you move between cultures that share a language because you expect things to be the same and they aren’t.

Culture shock resolves itself in a matter of weeks or months. Initial adaptation to the new culture takes place. The “newness” wears off. Things around you don’t surprise you as much anymore. You know what to do, what to expect. But you still haven’t grown completely accustomed to the new culture. Culture shock turns into culture stress.

Culture stress is defined for missionaries as: 

the adjustment stage in which people accept the new environment, adopting new ways of thinking and doing things so that they feel like they belong to the new culture. This takes years, and some missionaries never complete it.

How do stress (as experienced in your country of origin) and culture stress differ and how are they the same?

Let’s start with the similarities. Both are brought on by tension, anxiety, or circumstances around us. Both are an inescapable fact of life. Both must be dealt with properly or they will cause physical problems.

However, there are some significant differences between stress and culture stress.

• Culture stress is brought on by the process of adaptation to a foreign culture. All familiar cultural clues can be thrown out. You have to completely relearn how to respond in every situation. Sometimes this is easy and sometimes it isn’t.
• Culture stress is exacerbated by an inability to communicate in the new culture. Even if the language in the host country is the same as your native language words have different meanings. You have to relearn all of these. Then there is the obvious issue of having to learn to communicate in another language (or languages)
• Cultural values play a huge role in culture stress. If the perceived value system of your host country differs from your country of origin you can become resentful or frustrated with the host country and react to what they do and how they do it.
• Culture stress cannot be avoided. Ever. It is a fact of life that every person living outside their country of origin will experience. You will never completely adapt to your host country. 

Sadly, as adaptation to your host country takes place, your country of origin becomes less and less familiar. Every time you visit, you struggle with culture shock similar to what you experienced when you first arrived in your host country. All the things that seemed “normal” before aren’t anymore. Cultural cues aren’t familiar. You say and do things that people in your country of origin can’t understand, but you don’t notice you are doing them because it’s “normal” in your host country.

Consequently, people who live overseas for any length of time end up in a constant cycle of adaptation wherever they go.

There are positive ways to manage this stress and there are negative ways. I’ll be covering some of this in another post.

When you pray for your missionaries, pray they have the grace and wisdom to adapt to their new culture so they can effectively reach the people with the gospel. This is not always easy. Our desire is for others to see Jesus in us. But when the culture is dealing with me instead of me dealing with the culture, it’s hard for this desire to be realized.