Stress: In a medical or biological context stress is a  Separation from a spouse or committed

physical, mental, or emotional factor that causes bodily relationship partner

or mental tension. Stresses can be external (from the  Conflict in interpersonal relationships
environment, psychological, or social situations) or  Bankruptcy/Money Problems
internal (illness, or from a medical procedure). Stress  Unemployment
can initiate the "fight or flight" response, a complex  Sleep problems
reaction of neurologic and endocrinologic systems.  Children's problems at school
 Legal problems
Stress can cause or influence the course of many

medical conditions including psychological conditions
Examples of positive personal stressors include:
such as depression and anxiety. Medical problems
can include poor healing, irritable bowel
 Receiving a promotion or raise at work
syndrome, high blood pressure, poorly
controlled diabetes and many other conditions. Stress  Starting a new job
management is recognized as an effective treatment  Marriage
modality to include pharmacologic and non-  Buying a home
pharmacologic components.  Having a child
 Moving
Stress is not always a bad thing. Stress is simply the  Taking a vacation
body's response to changes that create taxing  Holiday seasons
demands. The previously mentioned Dr.  Retiring
Lazarus (building on Dr. Selye's work) suggested that  Taking educational classes or learning a new
there is a difference between eustress, which is a term hobby
for positive stress, and distress, which refers to
negative stress. In daily life, we often use the term
"stress" to describe negative situations. This leads PHYSICAL RESPONSES
many people to believe that all stress is bad for you,
which is not true. Eustress, or positive stress, has the
If you were to make a checklist of yourself during any
following characteristics:
given stressful moment, you might find that some or all
of the following things were happening: your stomach,
 Motivates, focuses energy
arm and leg muscles might be tense and rigid; your
 Is short-term pulse rate might be increased and your heart pounding;
 Is perceived as within our coping abilities you might feel yourself perspiring and find that you
 Feels exciting were unable to sit still and concentrate, and even your
 Improves performance digestive system might be upset.
 In contrast, Distress, or negative stress, has These are all physical responses to stress, the results
the following characteristics: of our bodies’ efforts to adapt to stressful conditions.
 Causes anxiety or concern They come under the heading of the “fight or flight”
 Can be short- or long-term response and they can be extremely useful.
 Is perceived as outside of our coping abilities
 Feels unpleasant
 Decreases performance Alarm
 Can lead to mental and physical problems When your brain perceives a stressor, it sends a
message to your pituitary gland, which secretes
It is somewhat hard to categorize stressors into hormones to stimulate the adrenal gland to release
objective lists of those that cause eustress and those adrenals into the bloodstream. The body is now ready
that cause distress, because different people will have to deal with any real or imagined dangers or
different reactions to particular situations. However, by challenges.
generalizing, we can compile a list of stressors that are
typically experienced as negative or positive to most Resistance
people, most of the time. This occurs when the stressor persists. The body
adapts to running in high gear, a situation that drains a
Examples of negative personal stressors include: good deal of the body’s energy as the high levels of
hormones continue. If the immediate threat is
 The death of a spouse overcome, the body’s reverse mechanism comes into
 Filing for divorce play and things return to normal. If, however, this stage
 Losing contact with loved ones continues for too long, the body’s resources become
 The death of a family member depleted and the next stage sets in.
 Hospitalization (oneself or a family member)
 Injury or illness (oneself or a family member)
 Being abused or neglected
Exhaustion immediately disentangle ourselves from traffic jams
At this point your body is telling you it is running out of that stress has such an impact on our behavior.
steam. Your blood vessels may start to tighten up,
making it harder for the blood to flow through them. The “fight” response can be aggressive, such as losing
Chronic stress also changes the chemistry of the your temper and lashing out at your partner. It can also
blood, making it more lily to clot. This means there’s a be passive, where you sulk and ignore people. The
greater chance that a clot will form and lodge in a “flight” response, in which you walk away or avoid
narrow artery in the heart, and cause a heart attack. So stressful situations, generally reduces stress in the
chronic stress can be hard on the heart. short term. But it can restrict the way you live your life
and cause further stress because of that. And of
course, you cannot always flee a stressful situation.
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESPONSES Nervous tics, nail biting, absent-mindedness and foot
In the first place, it’s important to understand that an tapping are all forms of escape and are pretty
event or situation becomes a stressor simply because harmless. But other means of escaping stress –
you see it as one. Policemen, for instance, report that increased use of alcohol, smoking, taking drugs, using
they feel more under stress when they have to deal tranquilizers – bring with them a host of other problems,
with the boring paperwork of a desk job than when they which in turn lead to further stress.
are out making arrests and intervening in crimes. They
have been trained to act, and when they perceive
themselves to not be acting, they feel stress. It’s not the event or situation in itself that harms us; it’s
our reaction, our perception of the event, how we think
and feel about it, that can either hurt us or motivate us
Also, how you coped with a similar experience in the to achieve our goals. Stress can actually be a positive
past will determine your expectations about whether or force in our life. Symphony conductors are good
not you are going to be able to deal with a stressful examples of this. The average conductor has what to
situation in the present. Simply knowing that this has many would seem a stressful life. He or she travels a
happened before, and you were fine, can relax any good deal, consistently has to meet deadlines, deals
fears or anxieties you might have about the event. On with often temperamental musicians, and works
the other hand, if this is an entirely new event, or if a continually in the glare of public scrutiny. And yet these
similar situation occurred in the past and you were men and women live longer than the rest of us. Why?
unable to handle it, you are probably going to be Well, they take pride in their achievements, receive
apprehensive about your ability to cope. applause for their work, are respected in the world of
music and the community at large, and receive a great
To complicate matters, many of us believe there is amount of creative fulfillment from their jobs. These
something inherently wrong with feeling anxious or factors would seem to outweigh any negative by-
depressed, and that attitude in itself increases our products of stress.
levels of stress. We may try to eliminate those feelings
by smoking, drinking alcohol, overeating or keeping We can’t all be symphony conductors, nor would we
ourselves so busy there’s no time to dwell on our wish to be. But we do need, each of us in our own way,
anxieties. to find balance and equilibrium in our lives and our
work. What may be a negative stressor to one person
When we’re having difficulty managing stress, we may can be a challenge to someone else. Thrill-seekers see
find we can’t concentrate at work, or have difficulty sky-diving as exhilarating; most of the rest of us break
making even the simplest decision. We may become out in a cold sweat at the thought. We need to find jobs
irritable and quick to anger, or find that we’re and lifestyles that are compatible with our abilities and
developing irrational fears about everyday situations. our individual levels of stress tolerance. And we need
Feelings of stress can chip away at our self- to learn to manage the stressors we cannot change.
confidence.

BEHAVIORAL RESPONSES

The “fight or flight” response can be a constructive

attempt to solve a problem or an inappropriate reaction
to a difficult situation, depending on the circumstances.
In wartime, a soldier may be called on to fight for his
country; punching an antagonistic co-worker, however,
doesn’t solve anything. It makes sense to flee a
dangerous animal; running away from a traffic jam is
neither appropriate nor, in most cases, possible. And it
is because we cannot attack our coworkers or