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STRESS AND HEALTH

"We each learned that our inner experience of stress resulted not from the circumstances

of our hurried lives, but from our habitual way of perceiving life. We learned that we

could change our inner world -- our feelings, our stress levels, even the speed of our lives

-- by tapping into a way of thinking that makes life easier, simpler, and much more

enjoyable."

By Richard Carlson and Joseph Bailey

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Rita Rebaza

Psychology 1010

Professor John Seaman

April 17, 2012

Stress and Health

The American Psychological Association (APA) reports that 73% of Americans name

money as the number one factor that affects their stress level (2004), 62% of Americans

say work has a significant impact on stress levels (2004), 77% of Americans experience

physical symptoms, and 73% experience psychological symptoms in a given month (2007)

("Stress Statistics"). As we know, modern life is full of hassles, deadlines, frustrations, and

demands. For many years now, our own lifestyles have been very stressful due to changes we are

exposed to. In fact, stress has become the way we live and the way we think. In effect, it can be

part of anyone at any age, social condition or culture. For that reason, when we think we can not

handle stress, we consider it as a bad thing. However, according to critics, stress is the body’s

natural way to beat the demands of life. But in some cases, if it becomes chronic, it can lead to

physical and psychological disease. For that reason, specialists in Health Psychology are

researching and finding new ways to deal with stress and other physical and psychological

diseases.

Stress is difficult to define because researchers approach it in different ways. According to the American Psychological Association, stress is "the pattern of specific and

nonspecific responses that an organism makes to stimulus events that disturb its equilibrium and

tax or exceed its ability to cope" ("Psychological Terms"). According to Oxford Dictionary, stress

is "a state of affair involving demand on physical or mental energy." In medical context, stress is

defined as a perturbation of the body's homeostasis (our internal equilibrium) ("Stress"). While

some specialists use the term stress to refer to the physical and emotional experience of being

threatened by stressors, others think of stress as the circumstances that threatened our well being.

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For those reasons, researchers agree that stress is subjective because people don’t have the same

response to the same events. Instead, stress depends on how people appraise or evaluate the life's

events ("Stress and Stressors")

According to scientists, the stress response has a long history in human development. In

its evolution, ancient people have experienced significant environmental stressors such as battling

with wild animals to save their families or look for food. These stressor influenced our genetic

development making our bodies strong enough in order to deal with the threatening events. In

1929, Walter Cannon became the first American physiologist at Harvard who described the

body's response to any threatening stimulus, and who named it as the fight or flight response.

According to research conducted since Cannon's discovery, the human body responds to stressors

by activating the nervous system (hypothalamus, adrenal glands) and

specific hormones (adrenaline and cortisol) releasing them into the

bloodstream. These hormones raise the blood pressure preparing the

body to react to the stressful situation. Specialists agree that the stress response in moderate

doses, are necessary in our life because it is "our body's best defense systems against threatening

events" ("Stress"). In a risky situation, such as accidents or a sudden attack on life, it makes us

more alert by increasing our focus, strength and speed. In other words, we are physically ready

for action.

Although stress sometimes feels it has always been there, in fact stress is a relatively new

concept. In the 15th century, stress meant applied pressure or physical strain. By the seventeen

century, stress had more to do with adversity, hardship or some form of affliction. However, it

was not until the eighteenth and nineteenth century that stress was considered a psychological

disturbance, ill health and mental disease. The fact of the matter was that the Western world

began a dramatic social change due to industrialization, world commercial trading and massive

urbanization. It created new innovations and heavy demands in the urban individual's life. As a

result, people started feeling the symptoms of stress and internal discomfort in a culture strongly

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marked by competition, achievement, and a high tempo. Based on it, the industrial revolution,

realizing that the high productivity could create significant psychological problems, but also

industrial inefficiency, they sought to prevent it by improving the workers’ physical and mental

health service. As a consequence, Health Psychology emerged as a design to minimize negative

health consequences (Johanninson 3,4). In fact the research and the treatment that has been

developed for this study is high rocketing the industries, the government and the individual's

insurance premiums. According to a 2006 study by Human Resources Network, stress costs U.S.

businesses more than $300 billion annually. Stress not only accounts for 40 percent of employee

turnover; half of the 550 million working days lost each year in the United States from

absenteeism are stress related (Dwyer).

But what are the stressors that can cause people to feel stress overload? Specialists agree

that they are catastrophes, major life changes and daily hassles. Catastrophes can include war,

natural disasters, physical or sexual assaults, and serious accidents. Major life changes can

include the death of a family member, losing a job, getting married, or suffering a serious illness.

According to Thomas Holmes (psychiatrist) and Richard Rahe (navy scientist) any major life

events, positive or negative, can be stressful. To test their idea, they devised a stress scale named

the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS-1967) to measure life change as a form of stress.

For example, the death of a spouse, divorce and illness are rated as high stressors; changes in

eating habits, vacations and holidays are rated lower. According to them, if a

person scores more than 300 points, they will be likely to suffer a physical

disease (Lefton 476). However, according to Allen Kenner, a Ph. D

psychologist who developed adult and children's hassles and uplift scales in 1981, agree with his

colleagues that much of the stress in a person's life comes from small upsets rather than major

events. Daily hassles can include a noisy environment, a daily heavy traffic, financial worries,

difficulties of parenthood, physical appearance, concern about weight, frustrations and conflicts,

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etc. They conclude that although those stressor are minors irritations, over time they can add up

and result in major stress by affecting our mood and physical health (Lefton 477).

To give a better understanding on how our body is affected by the stress, emerged in an

important theory know as the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS-1976). This theory was

developed by Hans Selye, a Canadian physician, who actually introduced the term stress. To

develop this theory, Selye induced rats to constant stress, such as heat, cold, and electric shock.

He found that those rats that were imposed to a different kinds of stressful situations developed

the same physical response. Those rats showed enlargement of the adrenal glands, gastrointestinal

ulcers and atrophy of the immune system. In this experiment, he discovered three important

stages that our body experiences as it deals with stress. Alarm stage in which our body

(hormones) deal with or escape from the stressor. The resistance stage in which the body remains

on alert in order to resist the stressor (epinephrine and norepinephrine). And the final stage

exhaustion, in which the body fail to resist the stressor entering in a bodily disequilibrium. Our

immune and parasympathetic nervous system work abnormally making us susceptible to any

physical and psychological disease (Schacter 433,434). This observation developed by Selye was

the first step to understand why stress can be harmful for our physical and emotional health.

Although stress does not directly cause physical diseases, it contributes to many of them.

As the American Psychological Association estimates that 75 to 90 percent of all visits to doctor's

offices are for problems that are in some way linked to stress. The evidence

shows that chronic stress can result in muscle tension, fatigue,

hypertension, heart attacks, stroke, migraine, headaches, insomnia, ulcers,

chronic diarrhea, colds, asthma, bronchitis, infections, skin disease,

diabetes, osteoporosis and sexual dysfunction, etc (Fawn). In fact, heart disease and high blood

pressure account for more than half of the deaths each year in the United States. According to a

research developed by the physicians, Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman (1974), individuals

with Type A behavior showed a positive association with heart disease. The reason is because

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these individuals respond to stress with hostility, impatience, competence and fast pace; contrary

to the individuals of Type B behavior who are calmer, patient and easy going (Lefton 477). Based

on this observation, anyone's cardiovascular system can be affected by stress to some level, but it

is denial in individuals who cope with stress with hostility and anger.

Beside the physical diseases, not only our body is affected by chronic stress, also our

mental state. Individuals from different ages facing low moderate stress are suffering minor

symptoms such as irritability, short temper, anxiety, and tension. Individuals struggling from

chronic stress, report more severe psychological problems for the continuing release of

epinephrine. Those mental issues can including anxiety, depression, phobias, post traumatic

disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders and panic attacks. For instance, in the case of some

children and teenagers, they are showing signs of emotional disabilities,

aggressiveness, shyness, social phobia and lack interest in enjoyable

activities. The reason is because they are facing difficult events such as

high expectations academically, abused childhood, growing up tensions and demand for familial

responsibility ("Anxiety in Children"). With respect to some adults, they are suffering of burnout

which is the consequence of intense jobs. They become pessimistic, inefficient on the job and

debilitated psychologically and physically. According to Ayala Pine (1993), PhD clinical, social

and organizational psychologist, what causes burnout is using our job to give meaning in our life

(Schacther 438). For that reason, if we consider our job as the only important matter in our life,

we risk a strong sense of failure in the way we handle other events. In other words, we can lose

the benefits of enjoying new life experiences. Furthermore, according to Mark Powell, American

author of the book "Stress Relief", American culture are suffering more high stress comparing

with the European culture. He considered that American culture works not just to provide for

themselves and their loved ones, but just for work's sake. Contrary, to the some European

countries' worldview, they work to live and enjoy life with friends, family, love, art, music and

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literature. They considered is senseless to work through your life only to die and be buried

(Powell 6,7).

Certainly too much stress can affect anyone; however how much stress is “too much”

differs from person to person. It depends of our general socioeconomic status, age, gender;

genetics, general outlook of life, physical health and emotional well being. For some people

challenge is view as a point of motivation, for others it is view as a frustration. For that reason,

according to psychologists, the most helpful method of dealing with stress is learning how to

manage the stress regularly and not just when the pressure is on. They considered four

alternatives that we can choose from: avoid, alter, adapt, or accept. They agree since everyone has

a unique response to stress, there is no "one size fits all" solution to managing it. They advise us

to focus on what makes us feel more in control of ourselves ("Stress Management").

Since stress corrodes our mental state, specialists have provided us with techniques that

may help us manage our behavior against stress. They are coping and reframing. In general,

coping as a strategy, means dealing with an event. However, by psychologists, it means taking

action in order to manage external and internal demands that cause stress. The factors that

influence the way we cope with stress depends of our personality, the situational demands we

experience, and our social and physical characteristics. One coping strategy that helps to

overcome stress issues is psychotherapy. For example, by using the technique called the

"prolonged exposure" rapes victims relieve the traumatic events by confronting and thinking

about what happened (Schacter 438). By practicing regularly they can increase their personal

growth and self-reflect about them. In the case of reframing, one strategy that helps to cope with

stress is Stress Inoculation Therapy. This technique give us warnings, recommendations and skills

in order to cope with any impending event. It will improve our self esteem and our sense of

commitment (Lefton 486). For example, rather than getting angry about a heavy traffic in the

road, we should look at it as an opportunity to pause and breath deeply or listen to our favorite

radio station and enjoy some time alone.

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Because stress so often manifest itself through bodily symptoms, there are bodily

techniques that help to reduce them. They are relaxation and

aerobic exercise. Relaxation involves massage, yoga, meditation

and hypnosis. Those therapies require a certain mental discipline

and focus in order to create a sense of well-being and calm. For instance, several studies since the

1970 has shown that meditation not only dissolves stress but also helps to increase autonomy,

creativity, and inner satisfaction” (Copola 1). Same as the aerobic exercise, relaxation therapies

can reduce heart rate, blood pressure, muscle tension, increased self esteem, alters mood, reduces

anxiety, and depression. For that reason, specialists agree that we should make time for at least 30

minutes of exercise, three times per week. As Linda Sax, a professor of education at U.C.L.A.

and former director of the freshman study who uses the data in research about college gender

gaps, said, "Woman are most likely to feel overwhelmed over stress than men. The reason is

because men tend to find more time in activities that relieve stress, like exercise and sports, while

women tend to take on more responsibilities, like volunteer work and helping out with their

family, that don't relieve stress" (Lewin).

Other approachable way to cope with stress is by changing our life situation. It can

include seeking out social support, finding a place for humor, and having positive perspective

about life. According to specialists, those situation managements reduces distress, decreases risk

among Type A personality, and lower rates of heart attacks. One study showed that people with

well-developed social networks live longer than those with fewer social ties ("Stress, Coping and

Health"). Evidence also shows that optimism and hardy people are more likely to deal with stress

than pessimists. The reason is because optimist people view change as a challenge, show sense of

commitment at work and home, possess an internal control, report greater self-esteem, and self-

efficacy associated with job performance ("Using and Interpreting Stress Scan" 46).

And last but not the least important helpful way to deal with stress, is by adopting a

healthy lifestyle. It consists in eating wisely, avoiding sugar, caffeine, alcohol, cigarettes and

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drugs. According to specialists, if we self medicate with alcohol and drugs, it may provide an

easy escape from stress, but the relief is only temporary. For the contrary,

those substances actually end up stressing us more and becoming us addicted

of it. Furthermore, they toxify our body, reduce our vitality and change our

mood (Smith, Segal). Certainly to get involved in this healthy lifestyle is not easy and requires

control over the situation. And no matter what strategy we choose to overcome stress; we must

have it clear in our mind that having control over any situation is necessary in order to cope with

stress.

In conclusion, stress is part of our life. If gets out of control, stress can lead to serious

health issues such as heart disease and depression. It may also lead to drug and alcohol abuse.

Preventing stress is not easy, but no impossible. With some changes in our lifestyle and a more

positive attitude towards life is possible to cope with stress. To make it work, it is important to

view challenges as opportunities and stressors as temporary problems. Practicing on solving

problems and asking others for help and guidance is really helpful rather than complaining and

letting stress change us. By trying some of the strategies, we may be able to reduce stress,

accomplish our goals, make people's life optimistic, and enjoy life to its fullest.

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Stress and Health Reflection

"Applying Self Regulation in my Life"

I chose the topic Stress and Health because I am part of the statistics that most of us

encounter with this issue in our daily life. As a reference, stress had become so commonplace in

my life' routine, and even within my family members, my husband and children. It is an

interesting issue that doesn't discriminate people, age and culture. Everybody, in a certain way,

are affected with this social and health concern, and many ignore their causes and symptoms. For

that reason, I find it very interesting and I try to understand it; therefore, I can guide and help

myself, family members and social network in a more healthy mental direction.

Getting involved in this issue wasn't difficult at all. Of course as a mother and a college

student, making time to complete the assignment is a bit difficult. Also the sheer act of just

getting started on a research assignment and defining a research inquiry was overwhelming for

me more so than any of the subsequent steps that require the assignment research. However,

decision making had to be done in order to find the information required on the topic. With the

internet and library service, my research was much easier to accomplish. The assignment

extended deadline was also an advantage because it gave time to read the information very

carefully and get submerged into it. The Signature Assignment Starter's instructions given in class

was also handy because it helped me to develop a specific topic outline. And, the last but not least

important tool, was my notes of previous English classes that helped me to meet all the steps that

require a college assignment: choose a specific topic, observe and analyze, write a rough draft,

revise it, edit and submitted. Certainly, with those tools my job was less overwhelming, but also I

gained knowledge about this mental and physical issue.

Not intentionally, in the last decade constant stress has become part of my life. Since I

came to USA about ten years ago, I feel the pressure of a nation generally marked for an urban

life. The major life event I experienced was coming to a country with a different language,

rhythm of life and where I didn't have a social network. However, as the time passed by, I have

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been adapting to this multicultural nation that is giving me the opportunity to have a family and a

career. However, what stressed me out are the common daily hassles that is difficult to break. It

includes heavy traffic, deadlines, raising two teenagers and one child, keeping a house, dealing

with the language in the academic demand, the fast pace of the day, no time to enjoy in a day, and

among others. Due to these hassles I began experiencing regular fatigue, burnt eyes, tensed back

neck, backache, and sometimes anxiety. Since I came from a Hispanic country, the culture and

lifestyle is moderately different from America. Of course, working is part of our life, however

there is time to gather with our friends or neighbors to enjoy the pleasure of life. Certainly the

pace is not as fast as this country. The food is fresh and healthy and the level of life is less costly.

There is time to reduce distress, time to relax, exercise and laugh. However, making differences

about those circumstances help me understand that cultures are diverse and have their own

values. And that I need to be tolerant with the life's changes. For that reason, searching for a

better understanding of the subject, I am learning how to deal with the new life's demands.

Getting submerged into this topic, opened my mind, gave me better knowledge and skills

to deal with stress. I learned new theories that explain how our body works under stress, its

history, causes, symptoms, its repercussion in the individual and in the society, statistical

information, expert opinions and the latest strategies on how to cope with stress. Certainly,

working in this assignment made me understand that we are complex human beings. Some people

deal with stress in different ways. It generally depends of our personality and outlook of life. If

we don't get interest in knowing ourselves and what concerns us, we would suffer the

consequences of being uninformed. The key just lay in our internal control to deal with anything.

Whatever stressor comes to us, would not be a threat to our health. If we handle our stress now,

we can quickly be on the road to a healthier and happier life.

Since stress has become a social and health issue, many scientists are developing many

researches and treatments. I would like to learn new techniques according the individual's

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physical and emotional health, personality, gender, culture and age, especially for teenagers,

pregnant mothers and Alzheimer patients.

As a I reflect on this issue, I conclude what important is to be in physical and mental

equilibrium. Change in patterns of bad habits, improve self regulation, pace myself in my daily

routine, take time out of every day to savor the world around me and contemplate, and apply

some stress management into my life are being part of my life now. I consider that those

strategies are very effective if we as persons practice them consciously and regularly. It only

requires personal control. By practicing them, our life we will be more easy going and we will

accomplish our goals, enjoy life, and change positively the life of others.

******************

"Lifestyle changes alone rarely make a real difference. You can rearrange the

external of your life in a radically different way, but you always take your

thinking with you. If you are a hurried, rushed people in the city, you will also be a

hurried, rushed person in the country. If we believe that our feelings are determined by

outside forces, it follows that we will seek something equally external in response. As

we gain an understanding of our psychological experience, however, we can recognize

that the actual source of our experience is always our thinking. Thus we can begin

to restore the power in our lives." By Richard Carlson, Joseph Bailey

******************

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