Stress And Its Effects On Health

According to Janeway1, “stress is a physical or psychological stimulus which, when impinging upon an individual , produces strain or disequilibrium”.1 Stress is a biological, physiological and behavioural response to environmental demands. An appropriate amount of stress has protective and adaptive functions however a high amount of stress can cause pathological changes or even death.4 Exposure to stress can lead to painful emotions such as anxiety or depression, as well as physical illness.3 People under an overwhelming amount of stress may experience tachycardia, palpitations and rapid breathing.7

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.

Stress is the process of measuring and responding to a threatening or challenging event. If it lasts a short time it can actually be beneficial and can mobilize the immune system to fight off infections and heal our wounds. Stress has an arousal property that motivates us to solve our problems. Extreme or prolonged stress on the other hand can be very harmful and can lead to chronic disease. Stressors fall into three categories: Catastrophic, significant life changes, and daily hassles. All can be bad for us.

People are increasingly facing more stress since the Human-Being society became developed and complicated, by ignoring the physical influence to our body, Human’s health suffered considerably from stress. Many people was suggested to solve the stress problem by using psychological approaches, however, the research in recent decades has identified a significant awareness gap between the benefits of physical activities and stress relief. The following paper is aiming at exploring how stress affects physical health and how to relieve stress physically.

Stress is your body’s way of responding to any kind of demand; it can be caused by both good and bad experiences.

Stress can get bad enough to where it starts to affect your body system. Things like depression, heart attacks, diseases, rashes and a low immune system can all occur to people dealing with stress bad enough. The number of common signs and symptoms is outrageous and is depressing to see that there are so many people dealing with this and how it’s such a common thing in this world. On stress.org, they talk about the different body systems and how they’re affected. The nervous, musculoskeletal, respiratory, cardiovascular, endocrine, gastro and reproductive systems are all affected in some way and in many ways to say the least. If your stress ever gets so bad, I consider seeing a doctor or specialist seeing how dangerous this can get.

The major focus of this chapter was stress and the effect it has on the body. Stress is the process by which we perceive and respond to certain events, called stressors, that we appraise as threatening or challenging. The concept of appraisal is the important part here. Stress can be affected through this psychological filter, either making the stressor feel threatening or challenging. The way we perceive it can have either positive or negative effects. Stress, when perceived negatively can lead to issues such as coronary heart disease or increased susceptibleness to colds (Myers, 2014).

Stress is defined as a response to the demand placed on you. Stress is a natural reaction when the brain recognizes a threat. When the threat is seen, your body secrete the hormones that activate the "fight or flight" response. This battle or flight response is not limited to perceiving the threat, but in less severe situations, it is triggered when we encounter unexpected events. Psychiatrist Richard S. Lazarus is best stressed as "a condition or feeling felt by a person when he sees that the demands go beyond the personal and social resources that the individual can mobilize." For most people, stress is a negative

Webster defines stress as a “state of mental tension and worry caused by problems in your life, work, etc.” (1). There are a variety of factors that can cause someone to be stressed and stress can affect people in many different ways. “Nearly one-third of Americans are living with extreme stress and nearly half of Americans (48 percent) believe that their stress has increased over the past five years” (APA, 1). While a certain amount of stress is healthy and can increase productivity, it also has many negative physiological effects on people including weight gain, mental health issues, and immune deficiency. Stress is also linked to the leading physical causes of death including heart disease, cancer and stroke (Lazarus, 4, 8). There are many different situations that one might perceive as stressful and an ongoing stressful situation, or chronic stress, can be exaggerated by a poor diet and lack of exercise. Going to work in an unpleasant environment, speaking in public, or the death of a loved one are all examples of different stressors. (McEwen, 171).

“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

What is stress? Stress is defined as the physical, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses to events that are viewed as threatening or challenging (Ciccarelli and White 2009). Stress differs from person to person and can be experienced in many difference ways. Also, what may be stressful to me may not be stressful to someone else. In this paper I plan on discussing how people can be affected by stress positively and negatively. I will go specifically go over a few ways people are affected by stress; aches and pains you may feel from stress, effects of prenatal stress, and positive stress.

Everyone can relate to stress. Stress is someone or something that causes any strong feelings of concern or anxiety. For example, it can be over little things like traffic or big things such as, financial issues. Overall, stress is certainly a part of daily living. We already know the causes to the stress since we spend our own time worrying about it. However, do we know the consequences of stress related to our health?

Stress is any condition that seriously affects the balance of the organism physiologically and psychologically. Stress activates the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) releasing glucocorticoid hormones that produce generalized effects on different body systems including the nervous system (McEwen, 2008).

Psychological stress is pressure placed on a person to adapt, cope, or adjust to a situation (Rathus, 2016, p.284). The result of prolonged stress can affect a person’s mood, pleasure experience, and have harmful effects on physical health (Rathus, 2016, p.284). Society in the twenty first century places high demands on people. Technology makes it very difficult to separate work life, school life, and home life. Today, society places a high value on a busy lifestyle for individuals. For example, many places of business are open twenty-four hours a day. In addition to societal pressures, attending a university adds to the stressors a person may experience. Going to school not only includes classroom time but it also includes homework,

A substantial amount of Canadians experience stress in their lives. In fact, nearly one-quarter of the population over the age of 15 are stressed on a daily basis (Statistics Canada, 2013). Stress can be defined as a mental and emotional state of tension, in which one perceives the environment around them to be strenuous and overwhelming. Although some stress is necessary for survival, it can adversely affect both the physical and mental health. Its detrimental effects include but are not limited to: lack of confidence, concentration, motivation, decision making and increased heartrate, sweating, tension, as well as other physical and psychological problems such as headaches and insomnia (Canadian Mental Health Association, 2015). These health complications strongly emphasize the need for further research in ways to cope with, and reduce stress. Henceforth, the purpose of this paper is to use established research to better understand stress, then propose my own study that would investigate another stress-reduction method.