Stress

Dónal Kennedy

From our time in the womb (Glover et al., 2010) to our dying moments (Erkut et al., 2004)
and from daily hassles to major tragedies, stress is something we all experience during our
lives. It causes physiological, cognitive and behavioural effects that in a given situation may
be essential to our survival or detrimental to our mental health and physical wellbeing. In
fact, stress is often intrinsically linked to psychopathologies such as anxiety and depression,
so profound are its effects. The human body under short-term stress is taken on a
rollercoaster ride of hormones, brain processes and muscle activation: the alarm stage.
Following this is the resistance stage as the body tries to cope, leading to feelings of fatigue,
headaches and increased vulnerability to disease, while chronic stress can even lead to the
exhaustion phase and ultimately death. The term “stress” itself refers to our response to a
stressor – a demanding event or situation – and the amount stress that is experienced
depends on the severity of the stressor, how long it lasts, whether it is expected and to what
degree we have control over it. In other words the better equipped we are to deal with a
situation, less likely we are to find it stressful. For example, a student might find a final
examination very stressful if the date was pushed forward and he or she had not done
enough study, whereas another student who had prepared well would not be fazed by the
revised exam time. Stressful situations occur all the time at university; be they social,
academic, financial or familial, young adults are must learn to cope with such pressures if
they are to make the most of their time in higher education (Brougham et al., 2009).

The first step towards understanding the psychological impact of stress is to examine how
our brain and our body react to it. When a stressor is encountered a primary appraisal is
made as we assess the situation and the demands being placed on us. There are three main
categories of stressor: everyday microstressors, such as missing a bus and being late for
work; major negative events which are usually personal, such as the death of a close relative
or getting fired; and catastrophic events affecting many people, like being caught in a
natural disaster or a terrorist attack (Passer et. al, 2009). In the case of being late for work, a
typical primary appraisal might be “Now I’ll have to drive into work in rush hour traffic and
the manager will have words with me”. Simultaneously we form a secondary appraisal of
our capacity to cope with the stressor using our skills of intelligence and sociability, as well
as our own base of social support (“If I ring my wife she might calm me down – after all, I
won’t be too late and I can remind the manager of otherwise good punctuality”). Also racing
through our consciousness are the potential consequences of failing to cope with the
demands placed on us, for example: “The manager is laying people off and being late might
get me fired”. Finally we appraise the situation in light of our own psychological wellbeing
and beliefs: “It’s just my luck that the bus didn’t come. If I lose this job I must be a complete
failure”.

However, cognitive processes do not represent the whole stress response, and they may
both influence and be influenced by physiological processes. The familiar symptoms of a
racing heartbeat, “butterflies”, shallow breathing, tenseness, shaking and sweating all result
from the sympathetic nervous system’s alarm response to stress. Once the brain detects a
threat or the amygdala in the mid-brain senses fear, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal
(HPA) axis is set into motion. First the hypothalamus releases corticotropin releasing
hormone (CRH) which, as the name suggests, triggers the release of corticotropin from the
pituitary gland. This potent hormone is carried through the bloodstream to the adrenal
glands, atop each kidney, which it stimulates to produce glucocorticoids, noradrenaline and
adrenaline (Lupien et al., 2009). This combination of steroids and hormones results in the
“fight-or-flight” response that is synonymous with acute stress. In 1976, Hans Selye
proposed the stress model that is still highly respected and widely used today when
researching stress (Johnson, 1991) and as a guide for measuring stress (Ice & James, 2007):
the General Adaptation Syndrome, referred to above in its three stages – alarm, resistance
and exhaustion. Should the stressor persist over a long period of time, hormones continue
to be released though the body may no longer be anticipating immediate danger thanks to
the parasympathetic nervous system. This attempt at balancing homeostasis under stressful
conditions (resistance) is very taxing on the body, and overactive glucocorticoids can disrupt
metabolic function and compromise the immune system’s response to pathogens. If the
stress response does not subside, according to Selye, the result is total depletion of body
resources and death. Of course, in the vast majority of cases stress can be resolved before
the exhaustion stage using effective coping strategies (Ito & Brotheridge, 2003).

After examining the body’s response to stress, it is clear that the HPA axis plays an
important role in this process. The initial development of this delicate system can actually
be shaped and moulded by prenatal stress levels – that is to say, if a pregnant mother is
depressed, anxious or stressed her child in utero will experience increased HPA activity
throughout the first decade of life, thereby “passing on” her susceptibility to anxiety and
depression. However, the maternal influence does not end at birth. In a child’s formative
years, having a depressed mother can heighten his or her sensitivity to stress and
glucocorticoid levels may remain above average into adolescence (Lupien et al., 2009).
Taking into account the fact that genes and heredity also play a role in disorders like
depression, and that adolescence is already a turbulent period of HPA activity, these
findings are still striking. Finally, thorough adulthood and old age stress hormones may
target those areas of the brain most affected by degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s,
worsening the condition. At each stage of life stress is a factor that can have major influence
on how healthy we are and how we think and behave.

For many young adults university can be a stressful time, with exam pressure, part-time
employment, many new faces and novel experiences. According to research, leisure
activities can go a long way to reducing the anxiety associated with adapting to this new
situation – whether it be listening to music, chatting to a friend outside a work or academic
context, playing sport or simply taking a walk (Iwasaki, 2003). These “breathers” facilitate
the regulation of the stress response, providing the HPA axis with a break from the
resistance stage associated with chronic pressure and stress. Though important, leisure
alone is not the solution to the stress higher education brings with it. Coping strategies that
apply to all adults equally apply to students, and their use often results in better skills of
adaptation and overall psychological wellbeing. A rational, problem- and social support-
focused approach to dealing with stress constitutes a common-sense model that is
applicable to all types of stressors. To return to a previous example, the college examination
that had been pushed forward, an ineffective coping strategy for the student who had not
studied would be to downplay the importance of a good result or to avoid thinking about
the exam by going to the pub. This is known as emotion-focused coping and often does little
to conquer stress in the long run. On the other hand, if the student was to draw up an
emergency study plan in order to study the critical points in the remaining time and
maximise his chance of passing the exam, he would be engaging in problem-focused coping.
Additionally, he could consult his personal tutor for advice which would be considered social
support-focused coping. Tackling a problem directly and seeking empathy and advice are
the two most effective ways of reducing stress response and steering clear of anxiety and
depression (Holahan & Moos, 1990). This rings true for university students and points to a
healthier coping strategy for those who feel under pressure to constantly excel, and may
rely on alcohol to cope (Rice & van Arsdale, 2010).

In order to understand the impact of stress and accurately assess psychological disorders it
is important to be able to measure it accurately and reliably. Daily stress and stressful life
events are the two most typical criteria that are examined when measuring stress using,
respectively, Assessment of Daily Experience (ADE) and the Bedford College Life Events and
Difficulties Schedule (LEDS). The former was developed by Stone and Neale in 1982 and its
focus is on recording reactions to and thoughts about everyday stressors like being late for
work or social interactions, under the assumption that stress is more accurately measured
on a day-to-day basis, thereby reducing the risk of inaccurate recall and memory bias. On
the other hand, the LEDS is based around an interview where the client must cast his or her
mind back over a longer period of months and rate each life event according to the amount
of stress it caused. This scale accounts for a person’s life circumstances – moving house, for
example, might have different implications for a person depending on their financial
situation – and allows practitioners to create a calendar of life events that could illuminate
the real source of a person’s stress. (Kring et al., 2007) Although university students may be
wary about consulting mental health services when they are under a lot of stress (Sasaki,
2007), possibly due to social stigma, such assessments are invaluable tools for diagnosing
illnesses like depression and ultimately treating them.

Although stressors used to be considered to be demanding situations both positive and

negative, research has shown that the effects of positive stress, or eustress, are in fact quite
different to those of negative stress,or distress, (Lazarus, 1998; as cited in Passer et al.,
2009) and that eustress may even have a reversal effect on distress (Thoits, 1983; as cited in
Passer et al., 2009) and therefore only the latter has been addressed in this essay. There is
no doubt that stress in its many forms and concentrations has a powerful influence on the
course of human life. The initial development of the HPA axis in the womb and just after
birth may go on to influence whether or not one is a victim of teenage depression, and
glucocorticoid levels are also determined early on (Lupien, 2009). How effectively we are
able to cope with stress later on in university and into later adulthood is essential to our
wellbeing and productivity in the workplace (Colligan & Higgins, 2005). In closing, an
informed understanding of the causes, effects and responses to stress is the best weapon
when faced with demanding situations. Psychological disorders like anxiety and depression
can be avoided with good social support and problem-focused coping, and when they do
occur a speedy diagnosis may be given using precise measures of stress like ADE and LEDS.
From “fight-or-flight” to exam nerves, stress is a wide-reaching phenomenon that is more
relevant today than ever.
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