Stress And Its Components Essay, Research Paper

Psych.100

Summary of the story

Stress is everywhere. When you feel good and when you feel bad. When you get excited and when you get depressed. All we can really do about stress is to accept it and learn how to cope with it. The better we learn how to manage stress, the easier stress gets.

Stress and our health

Human body runs smoothly in a balance. Stress can put this balance out of proportion if we are stressed for too long. Our bodies become overwhelmed and that imbalance shows up as a disease or illness. On the other hand, occasional stress is actually necessary and even good for us.

Stress and the heart

As mentioned earlier stress can cause diseases. One of them is a heart disease. People who are constantly under stress experience frequent high-blood pressure. Constant high blood pressure damages the inner linings of blood vessels that can lead to atherosclerosis. Some of the typical stressful examples that causes high blood pressure are: public speaking, meeting deadlines.

Stress and immunity

Stress can also affect immune system. Nerves carry either positive or negative messages to the brain and to the immune system. These positive or negative messages can affect the immune cells. Also, the responses to stress, such as smoking, sleep loss, drinking alcohol can also affect immune system. These activities put a burden on detoxifying system of the body.

Researchers think that optimistic people have higher levels of helper T cells that regulate the immune system. T cells also act as a natural killer cells that defend against viral infections. Smiles and laughs also show to reduce stress.

Stress and memory.

Being constantly under stress affects your memory as well. You might not remember as well under stress as you would remember when you are not. . In recent study researchers studied that the cause of forgetfulness under stress is caused by a hormone called cortisol. In this study researchers dosed 51 people with cortisol every day , for four days, and asked them to mimic a mildly stressful event. Plasma sampling were taken after 1st, 4th, and 6th day. Researchers reported that higher-dose cortisol group experienced a reversible disease, which is the ability to remember details. They concluded that several days of exposure to cortisol at doses and plasma concentrations associated with physical and psychological stress in humans can reversibly decrease specific elements of memory performance in otherwise healthy individuals .

Stress and depression

According to James Gormley, more than 17 million people in U.S suffer from depression.

Gormley also reports that increasing our fatty acids, specially (DHA) intake play a role in relieving stress and depression. The connection between (DHA) and depression is serotonin. DHA raises brain serotonin levels which improves depression.

Stress-busting nutrients

The most important and effective way to start coping with stress is to improve your nutritional intake. The best anti- stress nutrients are antioxidant nutrients. These nutrients are vitamins C, E, B, (SOD) and beta carotene.

Vitamin C ascorbic acid, it produces more hormones that helps us cope with stress.

The more stress we are under , the more vitamin C we need. It is a water-soluble vitamin. Found in blood, eye fluid, and lung fluid.

Vitamin E provides protection from ravages of free radicals.

Beta carotene located and works in mitochondria of the cell.

SOB powerful antioxidant enzyme that prevents aging. It directs calorie from diet energy production. Protects liver and detoxifies the body of pollutants. SOD increases levels of glutathione.

Vitamin B Helps nervous system and supports sugar metabolism. When we consume too mush sugar we begin to feel jittery because we have used almost all of our B vitamins to break down sugar. This leaves less B vitamins for nervous system regulation. B vitamins are also essential in helping liver detoxify chemicals.

Supportive therapies

Meditation is a good way to regulate stress. In Fact, Pat Randolph, Ph.D., found that patients who used meditation, 80 percent were able to manage their stress better, than those who did not meditate. The best way to cope with stress is to build a good foundation that is made up of optimistic attitude, good nutrition ( always take your vitamins), and meditation.

Summary of the text

Stress has a huge impact phycology of minds as well as our health. Stressors include life events, daily hassles, and catastrophes. People under stress often suffer from depression, headaches, and backache.. Responses to stress can include drinking more alcohol, sleep less, and smoke more. These responses can affect bodies immune system by decreasing ability to fight illness. Whether a person is under stress or remains healthy depends on personality dispositions. Knowing how to cope with stress is very important because stress can increase or reduce life expectancies. Our personality attitudes and stress are directly related. For example, in one study a coronary artery bypass patient whose attitude was optimistic recovered faster than patients with a pessimistic attitudes. Some of the things that a person can do to avoid stress is planning ahead, exercise, good nutrition.

I have choose this topic with intentions to learn and gain some useful information for myself about stress and how to cope with it. The article, I felt was very throughrou and informative. I felt that my article and the text book go hand in hand. The text book material and the article were perfectly matched in different areas to make us see stress from the bigger picture down to its details. The text book gave a general coping mechanism, while the article went further into its details. The article broke the components of copings mechanisms to it s fundamental and chemical levels. Some of the information in the article I did not find in the book and vice versa., but the general idea on coping with stress was greatly referred in both sources.

I have learned an enormous amount of new and useful information that will definitely help me cope with my own stress.