Stress and Stressors

A stressful experience is caused by something that occurs either within the individual or from the
environment. A past painful experience can linger in our memory and make us feel depressed. Conflicts
with other people cause us difficulty ending up in stress. Common stressors among students may come in
the form of academic demands. We say that stress is the effect while stressor is the cause. Let us try to
check the meaning of each term.

What is Stress?

Exams, deadlines, research papers, and school projects demand time and attention. Family expectations,
conflicts, frustration, and disappointments sometimes lead to an overload of emotional tension and stress.
When we are under stress, we feel tense, nervous, and sometimes jittery. We could not even concentrate
on our work. Whether we are aware of it or not, so many things around us can create stress. We may have
gotten used to noise everyday and we are not even aware that it is causing us stress.

A stressful condition can also happen suddenly like a calamity or an accident. Stress is part of life and
affects both young and old.

Stress is a natural response to the demands of our environment. To put it more succinctly, stress is a
physiological response to a physical or psychological threat. It is a normal reaction to anything that can
disturb our balance, commonly termed as nomeostatic state or equilibrium.

Hans Selye, an Austrian-Canadian endocrinologist, associates stress with mental, emotional, and physical
states produced within the organism in response to stimulus (either internal or external) that is perceived
as threat (Selye, 1976). Walter Cannon, an American physiologist, calls it the "fight or Right" syndrome
(Canon, 1939). It is a physiologic reaction accompanied by faster heart rate, muscle tension, or dilation of
the pupil when a person perceives threat in order to survive danger. The "fight or flight" syndrome is our
initial reaction to stress and will be better explained in our discussion of the different stages of adaptation.

Stress can be considered either positive or negative depending on one's capacity to handle stressors. A
little amount of stress enables us to adapt and function normally. For instance, when we are about to meet
a deadline for a project, we need a little amount of stress to motivate us to complete the task. In a sense, a
manageable amount of stress may not actually be that bad because it has a survival value.

The term "stress" is actually borrowed from the field of physics. It means strain, pressure or force on a
system. In the context of human beings, the strain or stress makes our mind and body react. This is our
way to cope in order to alleviate ourselves from the effects of stress. This is why some people sleep off
their problems, spend time at the mall to relax, or hang out with their friends. And still others try to
combat stress by eating and drinking.

Chronic and severe stress is a threat to health. It can dull our system because we get used to it. Prolonged
stress causes fatigue, dampens our immune system, and eventually diseases set in. Researches have
shown that stress can lead to medical disorders like gastric ulcers, heart disease, asthma, and even skin
disorders (cited Miller Se Blackwell, 2006; Wargo, 2007). Thus, it is important that we identify the
sources of stress before they build up and cause us strains and serious illnesses.

Sources of Stress

A stressor is anything that induces a stress response. It may be physical, mental, emotional, social,
psychological, economy, or even spiritual in nature. Physical stressors may come in the form of pollution,
a congested place, or a high level of noise. It may also include fatigue, pain, shock, trauma, and other
physiological conditions in our body. Mental stressors include academic overload, reviewing for exams,
running after deadlines, or situations that call for sustained mental effort. Social, emotional, and
psychological stressors are somehow interrelated because they involve relating with other people. As we
interact with others, we encounter conflicts and disappointments leading to feelings of frustration,
tension, anxiety, and even anger or depression. An economic stressor may involve one's socioeconomic
condition such as limited financial resources to meet our essential needs in life. Lastly, stressors affecting
our spirituality involves loss of joy and peace or disturbance of tranquility.

The effect of stress cannot be easily felt except in cases of trauma where the incident happens quickly and
intensely such as a car accident or parental separation. Stressors that happen almost every day take time
before they finally take a toll on our health.

Sometimes we get used to it that we simply ignore the signs of stress. Think of a ticking bomb or a
whistling kettle. Before the bomb explodes and before the kettle starts,"whistling" takes some time. The
same happens in prolonged stress. Our body and our mind can no longer take the pressure, thus, causing
fatigue that eventually lowers the immune system. You often get colds and cough when your body is
under stress-a physiological process that our body undergoes when under prolonged stress.

Stress Factors

You will be able to understand more about stress by taking a look at the physiological and psychological
factors involved in a stress response

-the processes and strue-

tures in our body system responsible for these reactions.

Physiological Factor

Hans Selye, an Austrian-Canadian endocrinologist, proposed the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) to
explain our body's response to stress (Selye, 1974).
It consists of three stages: (a) alarm stage, (b) resistance stage, and (c) exhaustion stage. You probably
remember that there was a burst of energy at the onset of a stressor, followed by a resistance or attempt to
adapt to the stressor, and finally a feeling of tiredness or fatigue when the energy is already depleted.

To illustrate the General Adaptation Syndrome, suppose your parents often quarrel, but before the actual
fight, you sense that the atmosphere gets tense and you become upset. This is the alarm stage, signaling
that there is a problem starting to brew in your family environment. Yet, you try to ignore it and pretend
that it does not affect you the resistance stage. However, your parents' conflict continued on with their
fighting day after day until you are fed up listening to their squabbles. You now enter the exhaustion stage
where you feel that you have become tired and stressed out. Now, you react to the stressful situation by
going out with your friends. The body's resistance to stress differ depending on the individual's capacity
to contain its effects or their flexibility to adapt to their situation. The ill effects of stress occur only when
the individual fails to adapt and gets exhausted by chronic or prolonged stress in his or her life.

When stress becomes a threat or perceived as dangerous, the stressor signals our body by alerting it and
increasing our energy level. For instance, when there is fire in the neighborhood, we can easily carry
heavy objects that we normally could not even lift without such impending danger. We try to resist or
fight back stress until our energy is finally depleted.

But what happens to our body? Why do we feel this exhaustion? The hypothal-amus-pituitary-adrenal or
HPA axis explains the bodily changes and the source of disease that may eventually happen when one
undergoes prolonged stress.

The HPA axis is a hormonal response system to stress. It involves the release of stress hormones such as
glucocorticoids and primarily cortisol which are regulated to ensure that the body can react quickly to
stress and return to its normal state. However, prolonged or extreme stress increases the cortisol level in
the blood and affects our health substantially.

Whenever one encounters a physical or psychological stressor, the HPA axis is ac-tivated. The HPA
response starts when the hypothalamus, a part in the limbic system, secretes corticotropin secretes
releasing hormones (CRH) that stimulates the pituitary gland to release the hormone ACTH or
adrenocorticotropic hormone. ACTH then directs the adrenal glands to secrete more hormones, including
epinephrine, nor-epinephrine, and cortisol which releases sugars into the blood, helping in preparing the
body to respond to threat. Thus, when a person is under stress, the hormonal level in the blood increases
and may cause high blood pressure and other diseases.

Stress and the Immune System

The immune system is the body's natural defense against any disease. it helps the body fight infection that
can lead to more serious health problems. Handling chronic stress causes fatigue and consequently
weakens our immune system or our body's defense.

Researchers recognized that thoughts, emotions, attitudes, and beliefs relate to our health. Nurturing anger
and bitterness, for instance, can result in the lowering of our immune system. There are interrelated
mechanisms that link the nervous, immune, and endocrine systems through the neurotransmitters,
chemicals that are responsible for transmitting messages in our nervous system. Chronic stress can affect
insulin secretion, sex hormones, and even thyroid hormones. If stress is pro-longed, any or all of the
bodily chemicals, hormones, organs, and systems involved will be affected until fatigue occurs. We need
to strengthen our immune system so as to prevent infection from entering the body.

Psychological Factors

Psychological stress stems from one's own mental and emotional reactivity patterns to environmental
factors such as persons, places, or events. In other words, there are individual differences in the way we
appraise or interpret a situation. Our appraisal may or may not elicit a stress response.

When we are overwhelmed with stress, it is not only the body that suffers but our mind and behavior as
well. We feel lonely and depressed. Others become forgetful, irritable, and anxious. Some tend to isolate
themselves from others. The table that follows lists common signs and symptoms of stress that we may
have experienced.

hypothalamus - a structure in the brain responsible for a number of normal functions throughout the body,
including regulating sleep, temperature, eating, and sexual development; also regulates the functions of
the pituitary gland by directing the pituitary to stop or start production of its hormones.

hormone - a chemical substance produced in the body that controls and regulates the activity of certain
cells or organs. It is secreted by special glands.

Coping Strategies

How we handle stress depends on several factors such as the person's characteristics, the situation, and the
type of stressor that he or she faces.

People differ in their coping styles. One may evaluate a situation as threatening but another person may
not see it that way. There are people who are easily discouraged and fearful but there are also people who
are confident and see problems as challenges. Richard Lazarus, an American psychologist and professor,
defines coping as a cognitive or behavior response to stress aimed at managing or reducing stress. A
situation is stressful depending on how one perceives it. In his appraisal theory, Lazarus talks about two
components of cognitive appraisal: the primary appraisal and secondary appraisal. When one does
primary appraisal, he evaluates the meaning of the situation and checks if it will affect him. The
secondary appraisal involves how one feels about the situation. For instance, when a person recognizes
that there is a threat, he or she may confront such a situation and say, "Tell yourself the difficulties are not
important" or "For everything bad, there is also something good." A change in thinking is one way to cope
with psychosocial stressors.
Physical stress may be relatively easier to handle but requires self-discipline in order to apply changes
such as having a balanced and nutritious meal, a regular sleep pattern, and regular exercise. Sleep
provides the best form of rest while exercise prevents the accumulation of toxins and improves blood
circulation. Eating vegetables and fruits and taking Vitamin C can also largely help enhance the immune
system. Social and emotional stress arising from strained relationships may be a little bit difficult to
handle yet they can be managed, As social beings, we seek other people to fulfill our emotional needs.
Complying with demands of strict and overbearing parents or dealing with break-ups may not be easy.
Accepting change or changing the way we think about a situation can help. Have supportive friends
around you or communicate your difficulties with a counselor or psychologist if you could not find a
trusted and mature person to talk to.

Emotion-Focused and Problem-Focused Coping

There are two types of coping responses: emotion-focused coping response and problem-focused coping
response (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984). Emotion-focused coping response involves shame and
embarrassment, fear and anxiety, excitement and depression. It is necessary to learn how to control our
impulses to be able to take the appropriate action. However, there are people who have weak control over
their impulses or they have no control over the situation. For instance, binge eating and drug use focus on
the emotional reaction to stress.

Emotion-focused coping is used when a person has no capacity to deal with the source of the problem.
Thus, he or she uses different strategies to deal with the problem such as avoiding, distancing, accepting
the situation, turning to alcohol, or asking for professional help. Problem-focused coping deals with the
stressors directly in practical ways.

People with problem-focused coping take control of their situation by removing the source of stress or
reducing the effect of stressors. They may also get enough information or research on the nature of their
problem so that they can better understand the cause of their stress. For instance, a woman who undergoes
battering may read books and articles or search the Internet to better understand the nature of battering.

Problem-focused coping is the alternative we use when we think we can solve the problem after assessing
it. Several steps can be used in problem-focused coping such as defining the problem, looking for
alternative solutions, learning new skills to deal with stressors, and reappraising to find new standards of
behavior.

COGNITIVE SYMPTOMS EMOTIONAL SYMPTOMS

 MEMORY PROBLEMS  MOODINESS

 INABILITY TO CONCENTRATE
 POOR JUDGEMENT
 SEEING ONLY THE NEGATIVE
 ANXIOUS OR RACING THOUGHTS
 CONSTANT WORRYING
 IRRITABILITY OR SHORT TEMPER
 AGITATION, INABILITY TO RELAX
 FEELING OVERWHELMED
 SENSE OF LONELINESS AND
ISOLATION
  DEPRESSION OR GENERAL
UNHAPPINESS
PHYSICAL SYMPTOMS BEHAVIORAL SYMPTOMS

 HEADACHES  EATING MORE OR LESS

 BACK PAINS  SLEEPING TOO MUCH OR TOO
 DIARRHEA OR CONSTIPATION LITTLE
 FREQUENT COLDS  ISOLATING ONESELF
 RAPID HEARTBEAT  PROCRASTINATING
 DIZZINESS  FORGETTING OR NEGLECTING
OBLIGATIONS

These signs and symptoms are often shown by people undergoing stress but they may also be
manifestations of a deeper psychological problem. The student is advised to take precaution in making his
or her own diagnosis. It is safe to consult a professional when difficulties hamper your psychological
functioning.