THE NATURE OF STRESS

The Nature of Stress

The Nature of Stress

Introduction

Stress is an unpleasant state of emotional arousal that people experience in situations that they perceive as dangerous or threatening. It is accompanied by physiological, behavioral, and cognitive changes. Although stress signals danger and thus has a protective function, the experience of chronic stress is a causative factor in physical illness as well as poor life adjustment and psychiatric disturbance.(Barlow,2004)

Individuals differ in their propensity to experience stress and in their ability to cope effectively. Effective coping ultimately involves effective problem solving although emotion-focused strategies are useful in the short term and in uncontrollable situations. When stress and poor coping are experienced chronically, the resultant physiological changes may contribute to the onset of disease. Sustained stress and poor coping may also produce psychopathological reactions that have been termed anxiety disorders. The workplace is a source of stress for many individuals. Intervention programs have been developed to help anticipate and prevent occupational stress, to deal with ongoing workplace Stressors, and to address the aftermath of workplace stress.(Turner,2002)

Physiological Changes

Walter Cannon, one of the first people to study the stress response, coined the term flight-or-fight to describe the body's activation as it prepares to confront or retreat from a Stressor. Both responses require an alert, rapidly aroused individual, poised for action. Although the flight-or-fight system may have been adaptive in the ancient past when people dealt mostly with physical Stressors, it is less effective in contemporary society where people often face threats to self-esteem that are not amenable to direct action. Continual activation of the flight-or-fight system via arousal of the sympathetic nervous system and secretion of stress hormones is thought to account for many health problems, such as chronic pain disorders and cardiovascular disease.

Another stress pioneer, Hans Selye, observed that medical patients with different illnesses often shared symptoms such as muscle weakness and weight loss. He theorized that these responses might all be part of a generalized pattern of physiological response to stress that occurred irrespective of the nature of the Stressor. His three-stage model of the stress response (the general adaptation syndrome) consisted of an initial stage of generalized arousal (alarm stage), followed by the body's attempt to adapt to and resist the Stressor (resistance stage). If the Stressor persists over a long period of time, the resources of the chronically overtaxed body are exhausted and the resulting physiological damage leaves the body vulnerable to disease and even death (stage of exhaustion). Recent research indicates that many of the damaging effects of chronic stress are due to cortisol, a hormone that is secreted by the adrenal gland via activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis during stress arousal.

Behavioral Changes

No single behavior has emerged as a reliable indicant of stress. Stress is often reflected in changes in outward behavior such as tremors, heavy breathing, nail biting, teeth clenching and grinding, speech disturbances, and avoidance behaviors. However, these behaviors may reflect boredom or other emotional states. Psychologist Paul Ekman has noted that one way people commonly ...