By sumanOn

STRESS:

  • Stress is a universal phenomenon. It is felt by everyone. Stress has both positive and negative consequences. A change in the environment that is perceived as a challenge, threat, or danger causes stress.
  • Stress affects the person, causing many physical disorders in all human dimensions (physical which include: emotional, intellectual, social, spiritual and Peptic ulcer).
  • Stress perception and responses vary greatly not only from person to person but also from time to time within the same person.
  • Stress is a condition that occurs when the human system reacts to changes in its normal balanced state.
  • When actually faced with a stressor, a person’s responses are known as coping strategies, coping responses, or coping mechanisms.

Definitions of stress:

According to Selye (1956): Stress is the ‘non-specific response of the body to any kind of demand made upon it.

According to Schafer (2000): Stress is the arousal of the mind and body in response to demands made upon them.

Stressors:

The stressor can be any stimulus that causes an individual to experience stress. Three major categories of stressors are:

  • Catastrophic events
  • Important life events (personal stressors)
  • Daily hassles (background stressors)
  • Catastrophic Events – A catastrophe is a large-scale calamity that has a major human impact and causes major property damage. Earthquakes, hurricanes, wars, the pollution of toxic waste, and nuclear mishaps are all examples of catastrophes. Stress brought on such disasters is best shared with individuals who have also gone through the disaster. This enables individuals to provide social assistance to one another.
  • Important Life Events- Major life events like the death of a family member have immediate negative effects that, in most situations, get better with time.
  • Other significant life events include losing a job, receiving a life-threatening diagnosis, having a parent or close relative fall ill, breaking up with a close friend, relocating to a new school or home, beginning a new job, getting married, etc.
  • Personal stressors typically lead to a significant immediate reaction. For instance, stress brought on by a loved one’s death is frequently at its highest right after death. However, after a given period of time, people start to feel less worried and are better able to deal with the loss.
  • Daily Hassles- These are the minor annoyances of life that we all experience on a regular basis: traffic delays, noise, pollution, climate, social gatherings, work overload, unhappiness in school or the workplace, being in an unhappy relationship, people’s irritable behaviour, not having sufficient time, having too many things to do, worries about requirements, having too many responsibilities, etc.
  • Daily annoyances do not necessarily demand a lot of dealing on the part of the individual, despite the fact that they undoubtedly cause unpleasant emotions and moods. However, minor inconveniences on a regular basis can mount up and eventually take a similar toll as a single, more stressful episode. In fact, the quantity of daily troubles people experience is linked to psychological symptoms and health issues like backaches, the cold, and sore throats.
  • Uplifts:  These are small, uplifting things that give people a wonderful feeling. The ability to connect well with a partner or see beauty in one’s surroundings are examples of uplifts. Relationships with a partner, lover, or friend going well, finishing the assignment, feeling well, having enough sleep, eating out, spending time with family, fulfilling obligations, etc. are examples of common uplifts.

The more uplifting experiences a person has, the fewer psychological symptoms they eventually report. This is the exact opposite relationship that difficulties have with people’s psychological health.

Stress cycle:

A series of interconnected incidents create a cycle that causes stress. The severity of the following step increases with each stage. Figure:

1. Stressor:

Any stimulus that makes a person feel stressed out is a stressor. Events in life, such as death, divorce, getting a new job, getting married, etc., can either be positive or bad stressors. Pressures, obstacles, or expectations in life are brought on by stressors.

How to reduce stress- Stress-reduction techniques include saying “no,” learning to handle stress, determining what’s important in life, managing time, living simply, and more.

2. Reaction to Stress:

  • Once a stressor is there, our body responds to it.
  • Stress reactions are related to how stress is perceived.
  • The body starts to release chemicals to fight the stressor whenever a person feels anxious because of it.
  • Reframing the issue, cognitive behaviour therapy, praying, and visualisation can all assist to lessen the effects of stress.

3. Wear and Tear on the Body and Organ System:

The same stress reflexes that first helped a person cope start to tyre themselves out when they become anxious and do not address the stressor.

How to Manage: Improved diet, frequent exercise, yoga, and meditation are all therapies. All these things help to lessen stress and mental and physical impacts.

4. Reduced Optimum Health:

Chronic stress causes the body to deteriorate over time, opening the door to more severe illnesses including high blood pressure and cardiac issues. asthma, arthritis, diabetes, skin problems, depression, and potentially cancer. Chronic stress is linked to a wide variety of disorders.

How to Manage: Make a plan for restoring health by seeing an allopathic or homoeopathic physician, an herbalist, or a naturopath.

5. Increased Sensitivity to Stress:

Stress sensitivity rises when one’s body and emotions are tired out and fatigued. Over time, less severe stresses cause the same stress response that a major incident produced.

How to Manage: Exercise, walking, conversing with a logical friend, or deep breathing can all help you become less sensitive to stress.

Effects of stress:

  • Not all forms of stress are bad. In fact, it is well known that people perform better when they are under less stress. For instance, a student will only study effectively for an exam if he is under some stress. But extreme stress is bad for you.
  • The body responds to stimuli by launching a complicated series of actions. Emergency responses fade if the potential threat is removed quickly.
  • However, as the body tries to adjust, distinct internal reactions happen if the stressful condition persists. Such efforts to adjust towards the ongoing stress may exhaust the body’s resources, leaving it prone to disease.
  • Chronic overactivity of the body’s physiological response to stress causes wear and tear.
  • By causing chronic under of the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system or the adrenal-cortical system, or by compromising the immune system, stress may directly influence health.
  • Stressed individuals may not practise healthy habits, which might result in sickness. An individual is less likely to participate in healthful practices when under stress.
  • For example, students who are taking examinations may skip meals and snack on junk food while staying up late for several days.
  • Stress causes people to stop their regular exercise regimens and become inactive. Men who drink too much and smoke too much when under stress are more likely to develop heart disease and asthma. Both cardiovascular illnesses and numerous types of cancer are influenced by a high-fat diet.
  • People who don’t frequently exercise in a moderate way have a greater risk of developing heart disease and dying young.
  • Stress may have an indirect impact on health by lowering the frequency of healthy behaviours and raising the frequency of unhealthy behaviours. People who maintain a healthy lifestyle—eating a low-fat diet, getting adequate sleep, and exercising frequently—report that stressful situations are frequently easier to handle and provide them with a greater sense of control over their lives.
  • As a result, adopting healthy behaviours can help lessen life’s stress and the risk or progression of a number of serious diseases.

Stress has three main categories of effects:

  1. Direct physiological effects
  2. Harmful behaviours
  3. Indirect health-related behaviours

Adaptation to stress:

According to General Adaptation Syndrome by Hans Selye, 1945:- All of us face stress in our lives. Some psychologists believe that daily life actually involves a series of repeated consequences of perceiving a threat, considering ways to cope with it and ultimately adapting to the threat with greater or lesser success. Although adaptation is often minor and occurs without our awareness, adaptation requires maximum effort when the stress is more intance or long-lasting. Ultimately, our attempts to overcome stress can produce biological and psychological responses that result in health problems.

The purpose of homeostatic processes is to reduce the stress that comes with life. If they are successful, the internal environment keeps oxygen, temperature, and chemistry within typical physiological ranges. The regular mechanisms might not be adequate in cases of extreme or protracted stress. In this instance, the stress results in a broad range of physical modifications known as the general adaptation syndrome (GAS).

Hans Selye, an innovative stress theorist developed the GAS model that suggests that people’s response to stress consists of three stages.

  1. Alarm
  2. Resistance
  3. Exhaustion

There are two ways that stress influences the hypothalamus to start the GAS:

1. Stimulation of the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system and the adrenal medulla constitutes the first pathway. The alarm reaction is the instant series of reactions brought on by this.

2. The anterior pituitary gland and the adrenal cortex are involved in the second pathway, known as the resistance reaction; this pathway starts more slowly but has longer-lasting effects.

The body’s initial response to a stressor is called the alarm reaction, sometimes known as the fight-or-flight response. It is a series of responses brought on when the hypothalamus activates the sympathetic limb of the autonomic nervous system.

Reference:

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