Stress

 

We often use the term ‘stress’ loosely in describing a variety of unpleasant feeling states; for example, we often say we are stressed out when we feel frustrated, angry, conflicted, overwhelmed, or fatigued. Stress is any demand placed on your brain or physical body. Any event or scenario that makes you feel frustrated or nervous can trigger it. Anxiety is a feeling of fear, worry, or unease. While it can occur as a reaction to stress, it can also happen without any obvious trigger. The treat is unknown and imaginary and it mostly happens in an anticipation. Anxiety is a worry about something that will/might happen. Fear also often co-occurs with stress and anxiety as it is also an emotional response. Fear generally happens to a known and specific threat like being scared of a snake when it comes towards you.  

Hans Selye, a famous stress researcher, defined stress as the “response of the body to any demand, whether it is caused by, or results in, pleasant or unpleasant conditions”

A useful way to conceptualize stress is to view it as a process whereby an individual perceives and responds to events that he appraises as overwhelming or threatening to his well-being (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984).

Stress is the experience or condition that results (anxious or threatening feelings) when we interpret or explain a situation being more than our coping resources can handle.

Characteristics of stress:

1.     It is subjective and may be self-created: people are not very objective in their appraisal of potentially stressful events. Some people are more prone to feel threatened by life’s difficulties than others. A large chunk of our stressful experiences could be self-created by our pessimistic and maladaptive thought processes.

2.     Stress is an everyday event: Many everyday events such as waiting in line, having car troubles, misplacing things etc. can be stressful and are called as daily hassles. They have a significant negative effect on a person’s mental and physical health. Moreover, a major stressful event such as divorce can trigger a cascade of minor stressors such as taking new responsibilities.

3.     Stress can have an additive/ cumulative effect: Research shows that minor daily hassles can be more strongly related to mental health than major stressful events. These stressful events can have an additive or cumulative effects that may have negative consequences when an individual experiences multiple stressors frequently in his/her life.

4.     Stress may be influenced by culture: Culture includes shared ideas, beliefs, behaviours of a group. These influence appraisal/perception of an event. Studies suggest that Japanese and Korean students seem to suffer greater exam stress than British.

5.     Stress can have a spillover effect: Stress spillover refers to the process where stress in one domain such as workplace spill over to create stress in another domain such as family relationships like marital satisfaction. Similarly, there can also be a positive spillover effect.

6.     Stress contagion/ transfer: It refers to the process where one person’s reaction to stress affects the health of a significant other such as spouse’s depression affects one’s well-being.

Types of stress:

• Acute stress: stressors that have a relatively short duration and a clear end point, e.g., waiting for the result of a test.
• Chronic stress: stressors that have a relatively long duration without a clear end point, e.g., poverty.

Types of stress on the basis of social stressors:

Social stressors can be divided into three major categories:

a.      Life events: Acute changes that require adjustment within a relatively short period such as job loss. Unexpected (sudden death of a loved one) and off-time (widowed prematurely) life events are more distressing. Traumatic life events such as sexual assault are extremely stressful and may have long lasting effects.

b.     Chronic stress/strain: Stress for a long duration and without any end points.

c.      Daily hassles: These are minor events that require adjustment throughout the day such as traffic jams.

Type of Stress on the basis of its effect:

• Eustress: a positive stress that can be beneficial for us. For example, various challenges that puts pressure to grow, improve, achieve goals, etc.
• Distress: a negative stress that we generally refer to when we talk about stress.

Other sources of stress:

1. Frustration: It occurs in any situation in which the pursuit of some goal is thwarted such as traffic jams. Some frustrations such as failure and losses can be very stressful. Psychologists John Dollard and colleagues proposed frustration-aggression hypothesis by suggesting that (a) frustration always produces an aggressive urge and (b) aggression is always the result of prior frustration.  
2. Pressure: It involves expectations or demands that one behave in a certain way. These can be pressure to form (like tasks or responsibilities) and the pressure to conform.
3. Life changes: These are any noticeable changes in one’s life circumstances that require adjustment.
4. Conflicts: It occurs when two or more incompatible motivations compete for expression. Three types of conflicts:

a.      Approach-approach- when one has to choose between two equally desirable but incompatible option. E.g., want to stay healthy and also want to eat unhealthy fatty foods.

b.     Avoidance-avoidance- when one has to choose between two equally undesirable options. E.g., a patient with serious illness has to choose between having a traumatic surgery or a long-term therapy with unpleasant side effects.

c.      Approach-avoidance- when there are desirable and undesirable factors within a single option. E.g., a person wants to go to the gym but also believes gym membership is unnecessary and extravagant expense.