Environmental stressors, traumatic event and their psychological implications.

Environmental stress is defined as emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and negative subjective

psychological responses to environmental stimuli. 
Environmental stressors are stimuli and factors in our environment that cause stress and strain.

Stress is a multi-faceted process that occurs in reaction to events or situations. In aviation, the
source of stress that comes from the environment is known as environmental stress. 

In general, environmental stress psychology focuses on how people’s mental wellness responds
to physical, biological, and chemical stressors. These stress factors can be exposed to natural
disasters, pollution, climate change, electromagnetic radiation, or noise. 

Types of environmental stressors

Environmental stress theory is the body of science that analyzes how stress factors from the
environment affect people, communities, cultures, the ecology of animals, plants, and
ecosystems and deals with stress from threatening issues in the environment. 
There are many types of stress factors associated with the environment,

1. Climate Stressors
2. Major Disturbance Stressors
3. Anthropogenic Stressors
4. Energetic Stressors
5. Chemical Stressors
6. Biological Stressors
7. Physical Environment Stressors

1. Climate Stressors: Climate change is one of the biggest climates stresses facing a global
level. Climate stressors come from weather and climate such as a heat wave or low-light levels in
wintertime, or long-term climate shifts. They can last for a season or can be an overall shift.
Climate stressors also have many chronic mental health impacts such as higher rates of
aggression and violence, more mental health emergencies, an increased sense of helplessness,
hopelessness, or fatalism, and intense feelings of loss.

2. Major Disturbance Stressors: Major disturbances in life come from natural disasters or
national emergency and life changes like a move or divorce. A major disturbance can be caused
due to epidemic diseases such as Ebola hitting West Africa, an act of violence that kills racial
injustice.
The body can initially respond to intense incidents with a fight-or-flight reaction. Another
common reaction is to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), in which a person is
triggered by stimuli in his environment.
3. Anthropogenic Stressors: Today, the world is so different than its previous natural state; we
face the anthropogenic stressors of noise, movement, and crowding. With 7 billion people on
earth, humanity is stressful on natural systems. 
Species are disappearing and ecosystems are being damaged. Crowding and excess stimuli in our
environments caused by overpopulation or just having millions of people living together in small
spaces can cause depression and emotional stress.

4. Energetic Stressors: Recently many studies have found that the radio-frequency waves
emitted by cell phone radiation, e.g. radio waves, microwaves, visible light, ultraviolet (UV), X-
ray and gamma rays. cause brain tumors in rats and disturbances to the body and mind in human
beings. 

5. Chemical Stressors: A few hundred years ago, people were surrounded by nature and had
eaten naturally grown foods. 
Today, we live in a more industrialized and chemical-saturated world and encounter thousands of
chemicals daily: pesticide residue on our food, antibiotics, and hormones fed to food animals,
and our beauty and chemical products in household products and even in our carpets and
furniture. 
While they may not cause blatant mental stress – unless we live next door to a chemical factory
– these substances physically stress the body.

6. Biological Stressors: When the body’s immune system cannot keep up properly, a major
illness may occur. For example, biological stressors in the form of pathogens like viruses,
bacteria, and parasites, as well as allergens. Many people have food allergies and sensitivities –
sometimes we may not even know about them – that affect the proper functioning of the
digestive system, which in turn affects everything from our skin to our mental health.

7. Physical Environment Stressors: From the beginning of humanity, people used minimal
light at night, but today, most people use lights late in the evening, including light from our cell
phones. Physical environmental stressors can include alterations to natural light, color, and
energetic vibrations. 
Too much sunshine or not enough can work as both stresses. During winter, people living in
northern latitudes without sunlight can experience seasonal affective disorder, during these
situations the depression and "blues" situation. 
According to the researchers, the excess and unnatural light affects our body’s circadian rhythms
and lowers levels of the sleep hormone melatonin, which means disrupted sleep cycles. 

Traumatic events and their psychological implications

Trauma is defined by the American Psychological Association (APA) as the emotional response
someone has to an extremely negative event. While trauma is a normal reaction to a horrible
event, the effects can be so severe that they interfere with an individual’s ability to live a normal
life. Some common sources of trauma include:
Rape
Domestic violence
Natural disasters
Severe illness or injury
The death of a loved one
Witnessing an act of violence

Sign of a trauma victim is anxiety and emotional outburst. Anxiety due to trauma can manifest in
problems such as night terrors, edginess, irritability, poor concentration and mood swings.

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