I'm pretty far along in my game and I'm guessing you're not. The only thing that stresses me to the point of passing out is when a whole crowd of people attack me when I'm on stage dancing. Pretty much everything else reduces stress for my character.
I am playing DoLP with multiple orgasms on so it's pretty hardcore. Just to test, I just tried to walk across the map in the middle of the night. 3 out of 4 squares I ended getting gangbanged on the street by crowds of people. Why? Basically because I'm being forced to. Because my character's stats are as far along as they are, I can kinda do it willingly. During the third gangbang I even blacked out, I think because they were choking me (I kinda skim read a lot as the encounters fill more than the entire page). I regained conciousness and I was still being used. After all that, Stress: 0 .
At the start of the game, yeah, you need to do things to manage your stress and avoid encounters altogether while your stress is bad.
