NOURISH YOUR SOUL, STRESS AND SPIRITUALITY
STRESS & SPIRITUALITY
Exercise 18: write 1-3 words that define stress for you.
Stress is commonly defined as a state of mental and emotional strain caused by very demanding and/or pressuring adverse circumstances.
Synonyms of stress are: tension, pressure, strain, nervous tension, worry, anxiety and nervousness.
In practical terms, stress is a very subjective phenomena with physical & psychological manifestations: ulcers, shrinkage of lymphoid tissue, enlargement of adrenal glands, rheumatoid arthritis, strokes & heart attacks.
It is subjective simply because one stressful situation could be non-stressful to another person; individual differences & selective perception; what we perceive & how
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Stress becomes a dominating issue affecting all aspects of life & making you want to talk about it all the time and giving yourselves excuses to be angry, irritated and lag behind.
Stress also negatively affects your judgment of situations hence your next steps, leading to more stress & the cycle doesn’t end. You become trapped!
Exercise 20: IPEC - Take 2 fingers & jab them into your ribs really hard. Start to have a conversation with someone, read something or engage in an activity. Where is your attention? It is probably not the discussion, book or activity.
This is exactly what happens when you are stressed; you are distracted & your focus is shattered, which limits your ability to think & function properly.
The psychologist Hans Seyle, describes the reaction as General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) which has 3 stages:-
1. The Alarm Reaction: This is known as fight or flight reaction in response to presented danger.
It is a natural survival reaction where the body becomes alarmed and ready to either fight to protect itself or to flight (run away) to save
The definition of stress according to the Oxford dictionary is “A state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances.”
The fight or flight response was discovered by Walter Cannon. He was an American psychologist, professor, and chairman of the Department of Physiology at Harvard Medical School. According to the article, Walter Cannon’s Fight or Flight Response, it states that “in 1915, he coined the term fight or flight… The flight-or-flight response (also called the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response [in PTSD], hyperarousal, or the acute stress response) is a physiological reaction that occurs in response to a perceived harmful event, attack, or threat to survival” (Walter). Walter Cannon discovered what your body does when under high amounts of stress.
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.
Stress is a big factor in everyday life. It influences how we approach life and events. Stress is why people run tight schedules and diet regularly. The power stress has is a negative effect over our brain and our body. Many people do not understand how to cope with stress. Therefore, people suffer from physical illness due to stress. Learning is not taking place when someone undergoes stress.
The individual reacted with a fight or flight reaction and over estimated the danger they were in (2008).
Stress affects your health without you even realizing it. Constant headaches or trouble sleeping would be something stress causes often. This can get bad enough which leads to serious health problems such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Stress effects your body with things like muscle
When faced with a life threatening position, human responses can be put to the ultimate test. These responses protect humans from threatening attacks, possible natural disasters, or mobilize the body during other periods of threatening times. Additionally, this sense is triggered when adrenaline, cortisol, endorphins, and many other natural chemicals are released into the body. Which can help to protect, and defend during what might occur next. “When presented with an immediate stressor, the body releases adrenaline, noradrenaline, and cortisol. Good Therapy said that, “The heart rate elevates and blood is directed away from the organs and toward the arms and legs to enable fighting or fleeing”(Good.)
People deal with stressful situations differently. However, there is an obvious fear when someone suddenly encounters a frightening situation. The acute stress response is a sudden reaction of the body prompted by a psychological disturbance over a short period. Most psychologists refer to the condition as the fight-or-flight response. When a person experiences a sudden physical or mental scare, the response is very fast. A person might decide to fight back the terrifying element or to run away, which signifies the flight aspect of the response (Lee, 2004). By 1920, few people understand this concept until Walter Cannon tried to establish the reason why an adrenaline rush occurs when an individual encounters a distressing situation.
People handle stress in a myriad of ways. It is a love-hate relationship in every sense. Many laugh, cry, become catatonic or frenzied, gamble, hoard, act out or become structured. Stress, and it's perception, can be motivating- or literally a killer.
In particular, the body responds with the "battle or flight reaction" activated by the sudden arrival of the cortisol and adrenaline hormones. These hormones keep the body and psyche wound, ready and prepared for response to the danger. This response served as a helpful, defensive reaction when confronted with primitive dangers, for example, a saber tooth tiger.
The general adaption syndrome or sometimes referred to as GAS is a collection of symptoms of a stress disease named by Hans Selye in the 1930s. GAS is defined as sequenced physiological responses to the presence of a stressor, involving the alarm, resistance, and exhaustion stages of the stress response. GAS is a three stage process that describes the physiological changes that the body goes through when stressed. These stages are alarm, resistance, and exhaustion.
Stress is brought onto a person almost a couple of times in their life mostly by environmental factors. When you're constantly
Your physical health. If you’re unable to manage your stress levels, it can lead to serious health problems. Uncontrolled stress can raise blood pressure, suppress the immune system, increase the risk of heart attack and stroke, contribute to infertility, and speed up the aging
So what is stress? Stress is a normal physical response that happens when you feel threatened or upset. When you feel that you are in danger whether it is real or imaged. Your body has a response when stress occurs and it is a way of actually protecting you. Many times, stress helps people stay more focussed and energetic.
One of the most difficult aspects of stress is simply the definition. Taylor (1999) defines stress as “a negative emotional experience accompanied by predictable biochemical, physiological, cognitive, and behavioral changes that are directed either toward altering the stressful