What Does The Term Holistic Mean-?

Hans Selye, father of the modern stress, defined stress as “the distracted answer of body to some command” , regardless of cause of threat, individual would act in response with same physiological pattern of the reactions. Many of the researches do not concur with meaning as they sense that stress reply is not almost universal as Selye suggested. Diverse stressors might produce diverse pattern of stress, unlike those different characteristics. Diverse stressors might produce diverse patterns of stress, unlike those different characteristics of response. Each one would see situation from own eyes and it becomes our perception of demands, which will decide whether we feel ‘stressed’ or we don’t. stress is not the factor which resides in individual instead it is entrenched in continuing procedure that involves persons transact with social environment, creation appraisal of encounter to manage with

Society defines stress as anything which forces us to change. Through technical terms stress is defined as “a negative emotional state occurring in response to events that are perceived as taking or exceeding a person’s resources or ability to cope.” To explaining stress researchers came up with the “Cognitive appraisal model”, this system works to tell us whether we believe we have enough resources to deal with the situation without becoming stressed. For instance as a now college student those who have had previous experience taking finales in high school can have less stress than those who have not taken it. This is because they have previous experience with taking the tests and learning how to study while those who have never taken one can become extremely stressed over the unknown of the test. Stress is one of the sub branches that is attached to the world of health psychology. Health psychology is a quickly growing branch that deals with the way the mind and body work together. Psychologists that work in the health field came up with the biopsychosocial model. This model explains the complex interaction with biological, psychological, and social factors.

Stress was defined by Selye as "the nonspecific response of the body to any demand" (Christopher, 1996), the

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).

Selye, H. (1975). Confusion and Controversy in the Stress Field. Journal of Human Stress, 1(2), 37-44. doi:10.1080/0097840x.1975.9940406

'Holistic' is an important word that is often used in regards to health and social context, and

Stress can be broadly defined as any stimulus that disrupts homeostasis, with the stress response referring to physiological and behavioral reactions to such a stimulus (Selye, 1950). It

Hans Selye started to use the term “stress” when he discovered that all of his patients looked sick and worn out. He concluded that all of them had something in common: they were all under physical stress. Selye did not stop when he provided convincing arguments that stress impacted health. Could it be psychological? Could it be stressful? John Mason, a physician, designed an experiment to test if psychological stress was equivalent physical stress. Either way hormone levels increased when put in a stressful situation. There was also a debate about whether people react the same way or react different. Eventually it came to be that there are common element that cause stress, however, people will react differently to the stressors. In my research,

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 cannot have detrimental effects not only to our mental health, but also our overall physical wellbeing as well, as discussed in “Mastering the World of Psychology: Fifth Edition” (Wood, Wood, & Boyd, 2014). This textbook defines stress as “the physiological and psychological response to a condition that threatens or challenges an individual and requires some form of adaptation or adjustment” (Wood, Wood, & Boyd, 2014). And so, anything that causes individuals to change to keep mental or physical balance in life, is defined as a stressor.

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 is an ambivalent concept. It applies to many different phenomena and eludes precise meaning. Stress may have different meanings for each individual, and even scientists have widely varying definitions of it. For example, Selye (1973) specify “stress as a functions of elevated corticosteroid levels and uses the term to refer to the effects of any agent to that threatens stability of the organisms”. Cannon (1935) used the term stability to deal with to the “process of keeping internal balance in the face of environmental change”. Cannon argued that human beings can responds to deviations from normal conditions by invoking behavioral changes, thus modify metabolic and other bodily processes to re-achieve optimal conditions. Selye introduced

Stress pertaining to a person is defined as a state of being in which the emotional and mental state is compromised due to unfavorable or demanding circumstances. In the workplace, is a very frequent occurrence among a wide variety of companies and positions, and can be considered the only common denominator in the workforce across every field of practice. However, it can be argued that stress is not inherently a negative thing. Studies have concluded that there are certain types of stress that are healthy and should not be avoided, such as traveling or falling in love. Characteristically, stress can be categorized into three categories – acute, episodic, and chronic.

The three perspectives of stress are: stress in relation to stressors, stress in relation to response, and stress in relation to an interaction. According to the perspective that stress is associated with the stressor, stress is mainly caused by exterior or interior stressors and a person’s perception has little to do with the amount of stress inflicted on the individual. The response perspective of stress, highlights that it is not the stressor that determines stress, but it is rather determined by how a particular person responds emotionally or reacts to a given situation. In the interactional perspective of stress, stress is determined by an individual’s perception of a stressor or event. In other words, between the stressor and the response is a cognitive stage in which the individual cognitively accesses the situation based on factors such as, values, beliefs, and perceived controllability. Albert Ellis, for example believed that much of the stress of mankind is the result of irrational beliefs people hold (Falikowski, 2012). For example, many people hold the irrational belief that life is far and therefore, when treated

Hans Selye (1982) points out that few people define the concept of stress in the same way or even bother to attempt a clear-cut definition. According to Selye, an important aspect of stress is that a wide variety of dissimilar situations are capable of producing the stress response such as fatigue, effort, pain, fear, and even success. This has led to several definitions of stress, each of which highlights different aspects of stress. One of the most comprehensive models of stress is the Biopsychosocial Model of Stress (Bernard & Krupat, 1994). According to the Biopsychosocial Model of Stress, stress involves three components: an external component, an internal component, and the interaction between the external and internal components.