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Stress
Stress is defined as an organism's total response to environmental demands or pressures. When stress was first studied in the 1950s, the term was used to denote both the causes and the experienced effects of these pressures. More recently, however, the word stressor has been used for the stimulus that provokes a stress response. One recurrent disagreement among researchers concerns the definition of stress in humans. Is it primarily an external response that can be measured by changes in glandular secretions, skin reactions, and other physical functions, or is it an internal interpretation of, or reaction to, a stressor; or is it both?
Stress in humans results from interactions between persons and their environment that are perceived as straining or exceeding their adaptive capacities and threatening their well-being. The element of perception indicates that human stress responses reflect differences in personality, as well as differences in physical strength or general health.
Stress is often associated with the personality of the individual. The Type A and Type B personality hypothesis describes two contrasting personality types. In this hypothesis, personalities that are more competitive, highly organized, ambitious, impatient, highly aware of time management and/or aggressive are labeled Type A. More relaxed, less 'neurotic', 'frantic', 'explainable', personalities are labeled Type B. Personality behavior was first described as a potential risk factor for heart disease in the 1950s by cardiologists Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman. Most research shows three distinct types of stress: acute, episodic and chronic.
Psychology Today offers the following explanations:
Acute stress is the most common type of stress. It’s your body's immediate reaction to a new challenge, event, or demand, and it triggers your fight-or-flight response.
Causes of Acute Stress
As the pressures of a near-miss automobile accident, an argument with a family member or a costly mistake at school sink in, your body turns on this biological response.
Of all forms of stress, acute stress is the most widely experienced since it typically is caused by the daily demands and pressures encountered by each one of us. While the word “stress” connotes a negative impression, acute stress is what actually brings about excitement, joy and thrill in our lives. Riding a roller coaster in a theme park, for instance, is a situation that brings about acute stress, yet brings excitement. Isolated episodes of acute stress should not have any lingering health effects. In fact, they might actually be healthy for you, as these stressful situations give your body and brain practice in developing the best response to future stressful situations. However, riding a higher and longer roller coaster can bring so much stress that you wish it would end sooner, or that you should have not gone for the ride in the first place. When the long and windy ride is over, you might feel the effects of too much acute stress, such as vomiting, tension headaches, and other psychological and/or physiological symptoms. Severe acute stress can result from stress suffered as the victim of a crime or life-threatening situation.
Symptoms of Acute Stress:
You know the feeling when you’re behind on a seemingly all-important deadline and then you get a call from your child’s school asking you to come by or you barely miss a serious car accident. Your heart might race, and your blood pressure might rise. Your sense of emergency might trigger a migraine or even chest pain.
Other possible symptoms may appear for a short time and subside when the stress eases. Our minds extend acute stress. Symptom results can include:
Severe acute stress such as stress suffered as the victim of a crime or life-threatening situation can lead to mental health problems, such as post-traumatic stress disorder or acute stress disorder.
Treatments for Acute Stress:
You might benefit from learning techniques to calm your mind, but this type of stress isn’t interfering with your relationships or career.
Episodic Acute Stress
Acute stress that is suffered too frequently is called episodic stress. Episodic stress is not like chronic stress, though, because this type of stress ceases from time to time yet not as frequently as acute stress does.
Causes of Episodic Acute Stress:
This type of stress is usually seen in people who make self-inflicted, unrealistic or unreasonable demands which get all clamored up and bring too much stress in their attempt to accomplish these goals.
Episodic stress is also typically observed in people with “Type A” personalities, which involves being overly competitive, aggressive, demanding and sometimes tense and hostile.
People who always seem to be having a crisis tend to have episodic acute stress. They are often short-tempered, irritable, and anxious. People who are “worry warts” or pessimistic or who tend to see the negative side of everything also tend to have episodic acute stress.
Symptoms of Episodic Acute Stress:
Treatments of Episodic Acute Stress:
In modern life, we often cannot take big, immediate actions to solve our problems. Instead, we can take small steps that build up over time. You might need to spend more time getting physical exercise while rethinking your finances. You might need the help of a therapist to change your circumstances or your responses to them. Risks can increase if you turn to unhealthy coping strategies like binge drinking, overeating, or clinging to bad relationships.
Chronic Stress
Chronic Stress is a grinding stress that wears people away (mind, body and spirit) day after day, year after year.
Causes of Chronic Stress:
If acute stress is not resolved and begins to increase or lasts for long periods of time, it becomes chronic stress. This stress is constant and does not go away.
Chronic Stress can stem from such things as ongoing poverty, a dysfunctional family or working in a job you hate. It arises from serious life problems that may be fundamentally beyond our control. The demands are unrelenting, and they don’t know when they will stop.
If a child had a traumatic childhood, they may experience life as chronically stressful even when on the surface they appear okay. They believe they are perpetually threatened by poverty or illness even when this is untrue. Whether the cause lies in your mindset or difficult circumstances, many people stop fighting for change and begin to accommodate chronic stress.
Symptoms of Chronic Stress:
Many young people (and adults) turn to destructive methods to avoid stress such as alcohol or drugs, improper eating habits, smoking, acting out destructive behavior, running away, or other destructive methods.
Treatments for Chronic Stress:
There are many healthy ways to reduce normal stress which include:
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