Stress And Stress Management Essay, Research Paper

Stress can be loosely defined as anything that is experienced as a threat to your stability or equilibrium. A portion of your nervous system is activated to ready the body to meet the demands brought on by an emotional upset. The stress responses is a physiological response to stress that results in heightened mental and physical awareness such as elevated heartrate, faster breathing, dilated pupils, and tense muscles. Stress can be broken down into three stages.

The initial reaction to stress is the alarm response or the fight or flight response. The body’s resources are put into action to meet immediate physical activity. The activity of the sympathetic nervous system, heartrate, and stroke volume is increased and digeation is decreased to deal with a wide range of physical change coping with an impending threat.

The second stage is the resistance response. The body increases its capacity to deal with stress. If the stress continues for a prolonged amount of time, the increased physiological adjustments that have been maintained so far have detrimental effects on the body.

The third stage is the exhaustion response. At this point the body can no longer deal effectively with stress. Some detrimental symptoms that are apparent are high blood pressure, extra heart beats, and emotional problems.

Some behavorial reactions to stress are difficulty relaxing, sleeping, controlling emotions, and generalized anxiety. There is frequent drug, alcohol, and food abuse. Also, under stress, there may be inability to concentrate, short attention span, boredom, or frustration. Included as well might easily be anger, irritability, and impatience.

As well as behavorial symptoms, there are many physiological reactions. For example, tension and migraine headaches, dizziness, and teeth grinding are some common symptoms. Some others might include increased blood pressure, palpitations, or heart pounding. Also acid stomach, general stomach aches, indigeation or hyperventilation frequently occur. There are many other physiological, as well as behavioral responses due to stressful situations.