How Do You Reduce Stress in CK3?

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The easiest way to reduce stress is to use coping traits, which are usually obtained during mental breaks.

For most characters, feasts and hunts will also reduce stress. Depending on your personality traits you can take actions that match these to reduce stress too.

Additionally, there are various uncommon events in the game that reduce stress, such as the death of a rival.

Table of Contents

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How To Reduce Stress
- Coping Mechanisms
- Other Ways to Reduce Stress
Events That Cause Stress
- Acting Against Your Personality
- Deaths of Family and Friends
The Effects of Stress in CK3

How To Reduce Stress

Coping Mechanisms

When you experience a mental break, you have the option to choose a coping mechanism to help you reduce stress.

Most of these are negative and give you debuffs if you use them. For example, flagellant makes you whip and injure yourself, and you can get infections that lead to death.

A character using the Flagellate decision to reduce stress / CK3 — A character using the Flagellate decision to reduce stress

However, using any coping mechanism reduces stress. So it might be worth it if you’re about to go up a level or reach max stress.

Some coping mechanisms are considered positive and are shown with a green color. These are Athletic, Journaller, and Confider.

The Confider trait tooltip is shown / CK3 — The Confider trait tooltip is shown

Positive coping mechanisms give you minor and predictable debuffs each time. They reduce a good amount of stress.

The stress reduction activity from the Journaller trait is shown / CK3 — The stress reduction activity from the Journaller trait is shown

Sometimes you may get events that allow you to take positive coping traits without experiencing a mental break. This is a great way to control your stress levels, so you should always try to take these traits.

Other Ways to Reduce Stress

Many events in the game cause a reduction of stress, not just coping mechanisms. For most characters, these are convenient and effective, so a coping trait is not always needed.

1. Feasts and Hunts

These two events are the easiest to access for most players and will usually provide a stress reduction.

The Host Feast window is shown / CK3 — The Host Feast window is shown

If you have a personality trait that favors these events, you can lose even more stress!

This Generous and Athletic character will lose more stress when hunting / CK3 — This Generous and Athletic character will lose more stress when hunting

However, if your personality does not match the activity, you might not lose any stress. In some cases, you might gain stress.

The Host Feast decision will not reduce any stress for this Shy character / CK3 — The Host Feast decision will not reduce any stress for this Shy character

2. Acting According to Your Personality

Another realistic way to reduce stress is to take actions that match your character’s personality.

For example, if you’re Generous, giving gifts will reduce stress.

This gift will also reduce stress since the character is Generous / CK3 — This gift will also reduce stress since the character is Generous

Some personality traits provide more opportunities for stress loss than others.

3. Death of Rivals

The death of rivals will also reduce your stress.

This can happen randomly in any game or you can gain rivals and kill them yourself.

A rival has died, reducing the stress of the player character / CK3 — A rival has died, reducing the stress of the player character

Duels to the death or assassinations are both common ways to take care of a rival. Making rivals who are very old could also be a good idea to provide a lot of stress loss.

Events That Cause Stress

You may also want to reduce the amount of stress you gain on top of losing stress. Some events cause stress for all characters.

Acting Against Your Personality

As mentioned earlier, if you act according to your personality, you will lose stress. The opposite is also true and taking actions that go against your traits will increase your stress.

For example, an Ambitious character gains stress when giving their titles to other characters.

The Grant Titles window for an Ambitious character, which shows potential stress gain / CK3 — The Grant Titles window for an Ambitious character, which shows potential stress gain

Deaths of Family and Friends

When family members or friends die, your character gains stress. The amount of stress gained can be quite high and happens suddenly.

A friend of the player character has died, causing stress / CK3 — A friend of the player character has died, causing stress

Deaths in a large family can be especially deadly.

Each family member gains stress at the same time you do – this can cause a chain reaction, where more and more family members begin to die of stress!

The Effects of Stress in CK3

Stress is a mechanic that punishes you for making decisions that do not align with your character’s personality. Stress can be gained and lost from a variety of events other than your own actions.

There are three levels of stress. It takes 100 points of stress to move up a level.

The stress counter is on the bottom left. This character is at stress level 1 / CK3 — The stress counter is on the bottom left. This character is at stress level 1

Every time you increase your stress level, you face a mental break. During a mental break, you must choose between random coping mechanisms or another stress penalty.

A mental break has occurred. Here, the Irritable and Drunkard traits can be chosen to reduce stress / CK3 — A mental break has occurred. Here, the Irritable and Drunkard traits can be chosen to reduce stress

If you remain at a stress level above zero for 5 years, you will face another mental break.

Level 3 is the highest stress level and usually results in a catastrophic event, like a personality shift or abdication.

A character reaching the highest level of stress. The Lunatic trait can be taken / CK3 — A character reaching the highest level of stress. The Lunatic trait can be taken

Be careful because you can even instantly die at this level!

A character having a heart attack at the highest stress level / CK3 — A character having a heart attack at the highest stress level

Samantha Campbell

Samantha is a Scottish writer, editor, and lifelong gamer living in Czechia. She loves to travel around Europe and enjoy the outdoors, as long as it's not too hot! She can usually be found constructing her next CK3 dynasty, carving some tails in Monster Hunter, or enjoying a horror show or two.