Understanding Stress

This week we have another great post from our student blogger, Samantha Ege:

            We have all felt stress at some point or another. Stress feels differently for everyone. Stress may cause your chest to feel tight, may make you start sweating, and give you butterflies in your stomach. But stress is not as unfathomable as we make it out to be. Stress is the reaction after excessive strain that results when coping resources become inadequate (Deckers 168), or in other words, stress is your reaction after a traumatic event combined with a lack of coping skills. It’s important to understand the common symptoms of stress so you can pinpoint what exactly made you stress-out and how to deal with it.

            The symptoms of stress can be divided into 3 branches: physical, psychological, and behavioral symptoms. Physical symptoms refer to the body’s sympathetic nervous system, or the “fight or flight” response; they encompass the weakening of the body’s immune system (Deckers 169). Being overly stressed can cause you to experience headaches, indigestion, the common cold, or influenza (Deckers 184). Psychological symptoms are the feelings of anxiety, boredom, depression, irritability, and just an overall negative mood (Deckers 170). An individual would be a bit irritable when he or she has a lot of things on their plate. Behavioral symptoms refer to the poor life and health choices that we tend to make when we are stressed (Deckers 171). We tend to over eat and eat poorly, consume excessive amounts of alcohol and drugs, and we lose sleep.

            These symptoms communicate to your brain that you are stressed and that you need to do something about it; knowing the symptoms of stress can help you understand what gets you stressed, which are called “stressors” (Deckers 172). There are many ways to classifying types of stressors, major or minor, short-term or long-term, and distress or eustress, just to name a few. When a stressor is classified as major, it refers to something that occurs occasionally but still has a huge effect on you. For example, a death in the family would be classified as a major stressor. But when a stressor is minor, it refers to everyday hassles, or those annoying things that you have to do every day; for example that annoying coworker at your office, or doing laundry. Stress can also be classified as short-term or long-term, both terms are self-explanatory but can be explained with more detail. Short-term stress or “acute stress” possesses a short duration time and a clear endpoint, similar to the kind of stress that studying for an exam would entail. While long-term stress, or “chronic stress” occurs over long periods of time, for example a nasty divorce. And finally, stress can be defined as distress or eustress; distress is the unhealthy stress that can do sever damage to your body and mind, but eustress is the stress you need to feel when you are in dangerous situations (Deckers 173).

            An abundance of distress, especially, can lead to serious physical and psychological disorders; along with stress weakening the immune system, it can also lead to the development of Acute Stress Disorder. Acute Stress Disorder is the feeling of fear or helplessness to a traumatic event that could result death or injury, within the span of a month, for example studying for GRE for a few weeks and then taking the exam. However if it is more than one month it is classified at Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, or “PTSD” as it’s commonly known as. This is the reaction to a stressful situation that results in the person experiencing distressing recollections, physiological reactivity, and social impairment along with avoiding stimulus that reminds them of the traumatic event (Deckers 180). War is a strong example for PTSD, many veterans after months, or even years, of combat experience PTSD when they come back to their home country. PTSD can be very detrimental to your wellbeing.

            There are ways to cope with stress, fortunately. According to the Appraisal Theory, formulated by Lazarus et al, in 1986, we are in charge of what stresses us out, basically. The Appraisal Theory describes primary and secondary appraisal of stress. Primary appraisal is in regards to what the event means (analyzing it), while secondary appraisal refers to how you think you can, or should, cope with it (Deckers 190). In other words, you are in control of how you react to certain situations. Also, there are two main types of coping, emotion-focused and problem-focused. Emotion-focused is focusing on the emotions that you are feeling that the moment of stress and coping in the best way to get rid of those negative feelings; which isn’t the best way to cope with stressful situations. But problem-focused coping deals primarily with fixing the problem that is causing your stress (Deckers 191-192). Furthermore, seeking social support can relieve stress, whether that is with friends, family, or a counselor, social support is very important to a person’s wellbeing (Deckers 193). And finally, according to Pennebaker, expressive writing helps alleviate stress; writing about stress occasionally can help relieve your stress, but you shouldn’t do it everyday because you don’t want to keep reliving the event you’re writing about (Pennebaker 2004).

            Understanding what stress is and how you can cope with it is vital to dealing with stress in the future, and will ultimately lead to a healthy lifestyle.

 References

Deckers, Lambert. Motivation: Biological, Psychological, Environmental. Fourth ed. Boston: Pearson, 2014. Print.

Lazarus, Richard S., Susan Folkman, Rand J. Gruen, and Anita DeLongis. "Appraisal, Coping, Health Status, and Psychological Symptoms." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 50.3 (1986): 571-79. APA PsycNet. American Psychological Association. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.

Pennebaker, James W. "Theories, Therapies, and Taxpayers: On the Complexities of the Expressive Writing Paradigm." Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice 11.2 (2004): 138-42. Wiley Online Library. Iowa State University. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.