Cause And Effect Of Stress

Stress Is the body’s way of responding to the hectic lives most of us live, whether good or bad. The body releases chemicals into the bloodstream, which creates a rush of energy and strength If an individual is feeling stressed. This energy can prove useful if an individual is in physical danger. Because it enables a person’s survival instinct kicks in; it is often described as ‘fight or flight.’ In addition, stress can also have a negative effect on the body, for example: suffering from stress and leaving it unchecked can contribute to health problems, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, and diabetes.

Kelly McGonigal discusses the importance of viewing stress as positive, as opposed to negative, by detailing three specific studies and findings about stress. In the first study, it was discovered that people with a significant amount of stress had a higher mortality rate; however, this was only statistically significant if the subject viewed stress as harmful. If the overly-stressed subject didn’t view stress as harmful, they were actually at the lowest risk of dying, even compared to those with a minimal amount. Therefore, it is important to change a person’s perspective of stress. In particular, McGonigal emphasizes that stress is important for a person’s body: it energizes and prepares them to meet whatever challenge they are facing. Furthermore, it helps the blood vessels remain relaxed, thereby allowing the heart to remain healthy.

Our book describes stress as “any circumstances that threaten or are perceived to threaten one’s well-being and tax one’s coping ability” (Weiten, 2014). Stress is not necessarily a traumatic, life destroying event. It can be as simple a small change in one’s daily schedule. People will have multiple stresses throughout their lifetime. Some will be little and daily, but overtime these add up and can affect you in many ways. Stress can be positive or negative and can take many forms; a few being frustration, internal conflict, change, and pressure. All of which make almost a daily appearance in my life (Weiten, 2014).

Everyone has dealt with stress at some point in their life. Stressful situations can seem inescapable. No matter how bad you want out of a stressful position there consistently appears to be no way out. Predominantly it dos not matter how hard you try because stress takes control. When you final escape a particular struggle in your life, eventually, stress always seems to find its way back to you. Never is it actually gone for good. There are numerous factors that cause stress in my life. Similarly, there are a variety of effects that can come as a result of stress. The primary causes of stress in my day include friends, family, and school. The effects can be categorized into three groups. These are how it alters me physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Stress is an emotional state that is difficult to define because everyone experiences stress in different ways. Pathologically speaking, stress is the brain’s response to certain demands for change and can be positive or negative depending on the individual. This state of mind is induced by physical and emotional stimuli; this in turn generates a response that affects many aspects of a person’s wellbeing. Psychological, behavioral and biological stressors all play a role in an individual’s mood, sense of well-being, behavior and health (Schneiderman, Ironson, & Siegel, Stress and health: psychological, behavioral, and biological determinants, 2005). These factors can threaten our internal homeostasis which

Stress is a very popular concept about which there is still a lot of controversy. '' Stress as an adaptive response, moderated by individual differences, that is a consequence of any action, situation, or event that places special demands on a person '' (Ivancevich, page 214). We say that a person is subjected to a stress situation when he has to face environmental demands that exceed his resources, so that the subject perceives that he cannot give them an effective response, which causes an increase in the activation of the organism. However, stress is not always a bad thing, since in many cases the stress response puts a number of exceptional resources at the disposal of the person, fostering a better perception of the situation, a better search for solutions and a better selection of answers to deal with the situation that has caused it.

“Stress can be defined as any event or environmental stimulus (stressor) that we respond to because we perceive it as challenging or threatening.” (Pastorino, 2013). Stress is common and occurs when someone is experiencing a certain standard of pressure toward a situation or event that seems hard to cope with. Stress is classified and divided into four major categories: major life events, catastrophes, daily hassles, and conflict. Stress levels vary from person to person and from situation to situation. Stress cannot caused an illness on its own but research has shown that stress can make us more susceptible to illness because stress can caused our immune system to be less effective. Therefore, under stress our bodies become more prone to devolving

The first thing needed to understand all aspects of stress is an apprehension of what stress actually is. The word “stress” has many definitions. It can be described as “An internal state which can be caused by physical demands on the body… or by environmental and social situations which are evaluated as potentially harmful, uncontrollable, or exceeding our resource of coping” (Mangal and Mangal 13), or when a person experiences “demands (that) exceed the personal and social resources the individual is able to mobilize” (Lazarus and Folkman 6), or in simpler terms, a biological response to stimulus (“What is Stress” par. 1). For anyone who experiences

Stress has a major influence upon one’s health, thinking, behavior, and mood. Stress is commonly mistaken for generally evoking negative associations; however, it is actually part of the human experience that places pressure on people so that they may be able to perform at a higher level achievement. Nonetheless, when stress becomes too much to handle, or becomes chronic, it can affect an individual physically, mentally, behaviorally, and emotionally. Stress plays a prominent role in one’s daily lives. Thus, it is important to identify stress and learn to reduce and cope with stress in order to prevent stress-related illnesses that may occur.

The phrase “stress” has various different connotations and can be associated to a lot of things. Stress is the body’s innate biological reaction to challenges or problems that may arise that an individual is not ready to handle. There are two forms of stress which are positive and negative stress. Positive stress can be exhilarating and assist in meeting life’s challenges. However, long drawn out stress can cause damaging reactions that result in psychological emotional disorders, psychosomatic disorders, and possibly life-threatening illnesses.

If distress is not handled correctly it can lead to the feelings of hopelessness, irritability, and even getting physically ill.

Stress is an anticipated feeling someone gets when they get into any trouble or difficulty. The human body reacts physically to any stressor that comes across. For example, our body has two important systems that play a role — sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic system. The parasympathetic system is known as a “rest and digest” response in which hormones send adrenaline and other transmitters to your body. On the other hand, the sympathetic nervous system is known as a “fight or flight” response in which it uses that adrenaline in order to react quickly. Therefore, both these symptoms react to any stressor that can prepare the human body for anything that might come across, physically and mentally. (Grant n.p.)

Obviously, whether we want or not, stresses are happening everyday in our life. They can come from the external impact like an exam is coming, to the internal impact as pressure from yourself to achieve an A score; or from a small problem with low intensity like a traffic jam on the street, to a big issue with high intensity like being in a huge terrorism. It seems that we cannot run away from stress, it is something irresistible that we have to accept. Because stress is unavoidable, we need to learn how to deal with them efficiently. Some kinds of stresses can bring to us positive effects that motivate us to handle things better, but majority of them give us bad feelings and negative effects to our general health. As my personal hardly to find the balance between study, work, and family, I am right now struggling of dealing with stresses, that are caused by the pressure from assignments and exams in studying, workloads of my job and the responsibility to take care my family. Reading the article “ How Stress Affects Your Health” on the American Psychological Association website, I can get more valuable understandings about stress, have connected to some knowledges that I learnt in my Psychology class until now and draw some beneficial learnings to apply in my practical life.

Stress is the nonspecific response of the body to any demands made upon it; it may be characterized as muscle tension and acute anxiety or may be a positive force of action. Stressors are what cause stress. Stressors are specific or nonspecific agents or situations that cause a stress response in the body. There are five Categories of Stressors: Acute time limited stressors are anxiety-provoking situations such as having to talk in public or work out a math problem; Brief naturalistic stressors are more serious challenges such as SAT’s or meeting a deadline for a big project; Stressful event sequences like difficult consequences such as a natural disaster, or another traumatic occurrence such as a

Stress is also linked low fertility in one’s reproductive organs, and can cause problems during pregnancy or one’s menstrual cycle (www.everydayhealth.com). This happens when one is overwhelmed with the stress he or she is going through in their lives. No one person is the same, meaning stressors as well as stress levels differ for each individual. This is why it is hard for scientists to reach the core because it is a subjective sensation related with a variety of symptoms that differ for each of us. Because of this, stress is not always a synonym for distress. Situations like a steep roller coaster ride that cause fear and anxiety for some can prove highly pleasurable for others (www.stress.org). Each person also responds to stress differently. There are numerous physical as well as emotional responses to stress. Stress can cause an ocean of different emotions that are often times unpredictable. It can have wide ranging effects on people’s emotions, mood and behavior (www.stress.org). Stress has said to have been America’s number one leading health problem. It has been shown that stress levels have escalated in children, teenagers, college students and the elderly for reasons that of which have lead to: increased crime, violence, and other threats to personal safety; pernicious peer pressures that lead to substance abuse and other unhealthy life style habits; social isolation and loneliness; the erosion of family and religious