Stress and Stressers

Stress and Stressors

Institution

Name of Student Introduction

The hassles characterizing modern life such as deadlines in work and projects, frustrations, as well as individual demands and desires lead to stressful situations. Many people have faced enough stress to an extent of finding it as a way of life. While stress is to some extent harmful, it may not always be bad. People have been achieving things they would otherwise not have achieved without pressure. Stress is bad when happens to be constant and recurring over a lengthy period. Recognizing the signs or symptoms of stress can help one take the necessary steps towards the mitigation of its effects or reducing the stress. In this paper, an analysis of stress and stressors is done in which case the types of stress are brought out. The paper would should the good aspects of stress, the negative aspects of stress, and the way forward to dealing with stress. Most agents of stress would be discussed including the way they contribute to stress on people.

Stress is highly considered as part of human life in which case people can hardly strive to achieve better things in life without an aspect of stress. Life itself is a stressing agent because of the many challenges a person faces in life. Stress can be defined or described as a state of mental or emotional strain or suspense in individuals and it happens in various ways (Davis etal., 2007). On the other hand, stressors are things around and individual that triggers stress to build within the individual.

Statement of the Problem

Stress is a major problem facing many people today. Some people may hardly understand that what they are going through is really stress, depression or something else. Some people go through health problems that are caused stress but hardly understand that such problems emanate from the effects of stress. Stress could be destructive especially when people hardly know the way forward in dealing with it. It may lead to broken relationships, poor performance at work or in academics or other negative effects. The main problem with people going through stress is that they hardly know the cause or course of the stress (American Psychological Association, 2013). Knowing and understanding the stressor is the best aspect of dealing with stress. It would be a common situation when people would be taking about stress while they actually imply stressors. To deal with the issues around stress and stressors would require a clear understanding of the problem leading to stress and any possibilities of eliminating the problem.

Types of Stress

As it has been stated in the introduction section that stress is not always bad or harmful, it follows that stress is usually of various types. Before an individual specifies the best way to deal with stress, he or she has to understand the kind of stress that is being experienced. The level of stress could be the grounds from which the various categories of stress are aligned. Taking a situation whereby an individual finds himself or herself struggling to reduce the increase bills, unsolved tasks, as well as being faced with challenges in dealing with household issues, the person would eventually fall in a stressful situation. Stress could be on short-term basis or could be long-term stress depending on the sources and the way of handling it (Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 2013). Stress could as well be categorized in terms of being internal or external if stress management would be successful. Stress may be internal in the sense that one’s body or personality is reacting to various demands. External stress would be yield by pressures from outside one’s reach or expectations.

A person can only experience two major and broad types of stress that can be either acute stress or chronic stress. Acute stress is the fight or flight response in which case the individual’s develops a respond to a threat that is significant to his or her life. The threat could be a certain challenge, a scare, or another aspect of life that would force the person to develop mechanisms of dealing with the issue. The response is usually immediate and intense, which can be thrilling under some circumstances. The stressors in this case could be job interviews (Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 2013). New life experience such as marriages or engaging into a relationship could be thrilling and stressful at first without knowing the course of the relationship and future prospects. Acute stress hardly lead to problems that would lead to degradation of one’s health but severity of acute stress can lead to mental illness or even heart attack as an instance of physical difficulties.

Chronic Stress on the other hand could be beneficial in that it can spur people into actions that lead them to making better achievements. Stress of this kind can be a motivating factor from which an individual gains higher energy of performing his or tasks. Chronic stress can however pile up and become acute stress especially if the routine aspect of the lengthy stress changes or becomes intensified. The persistent stress can therefore result to various health problems starting with ailments like headache and eventually to health problems such as insomnia. Insomnia is an inability of an individual to sleep, which can be described as chronic sleeplessness. People usually go through this problems is the stressors are problems that can hardly get out of their minds (Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 2013). The response to chronic stress is more subtle than responding to acute stress in that it is difficult to detect or grasp the response or action aimed at dealing with the stress by the mind or mental analysis. The effects of chronic stress are however able to last longer than the effects of acute stress and could be more problematic. While acute stress seem to be severe, dealing with it, takes a shorter time since victims are likely to forget as soon as possible. It is therefore great if people are able to differentiate between acute stress and chronic stress if they are understand the best way to manage the kind of stress they are experiencing. It may turn out to be a difficult task if other people come in to solve ones stress effects without knowing the stressors. Stressors can be the perfect determinants of the kind of stress one is experiencing (Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 2013).

Stressors or Causes of Stress

Stressors can be described as those experiences or situations that are perceived as threat to an individual’s life, wellbeing, or life position. In case the perceived threats are greater than one’s ability to deal with them, there is the likelihood of the person experiencing stress. A person would experience stress if he or she has the perception of not being in a position of dealing with the problem posing threat to an aspect of his or her life. Encountering stressors makes the body to trigger stress response in which a series of physiological changes may take place (Lepore, 211). These physiological changes happen to allow the person deal with the stress. An acute stress may have stressors that would make the individual respond by either fighting against the threat or running from the threat.

Stress in some case may be seen as stressors if people can clearly differentiate the stress and the stressors. Things that tend to stress many people could include job demand, hectic or tight schedules, relationship conflicts, and other related issues. In many case, not all stressors that are potential causes stress to people. People have different capacities of dealing with problems and it happens that stressors do not lead to equal levels of stress to different people (Staton, 2011). A threat in a person’s perception could be a seen as a challenge to another person.

Managing Stressors and stress

Dealing with stressors could be difficult although many people are able to manage stress. Stress comes to people when they are not in the right position to manage stressors. Stressors cannot be eliminated but can only be minimized. It is after dealing with stressors that one can then deal with the resulting stress. In any case, stress is an aspect of life that people have to deal with. People have an obligation of getting to understand the causes of stress and the best way of dealing with such causes. In order to manage stress, one needs to understand the problem and all the phases that have developed to cause the stressful situation. The manner in which one responds to stress is vital for ones survival throughout the period in which one goes through stress (Lepore, 211).

Managing stress should start at the alarming phase whereby one notices some changes in moods and behavior. An immediate response at this level would be necessary to avoid its persistence or a situation that may lead to chronic stress. It would be great is the person identifies the events leading to development of this condition, given that most of the events are found to be ongoing like the case of work, money, schedules, disorders, or even families (Staton, 2011). The alarms are frequent enough to trigger an action and people can effectively respond and this stage.

Once stress or stressors become resistance, it would require a greater level of commitment to get rid of the problems. In the resistance phase, one develops mechanisms that would allow him or her goes through the stressful event as well as go through the past the alarming stages. This phase may be critical and could lead to bad happening especially if individuals can hardly overcome the phase. People may show traits such as becoming short tampered and could develop lapses in judgments and memories as some of the effects of stress (Koolhaas, 2011). The body energy and any mental reaction are more concentrated in dealing with stress that the mind neglects other mental and body functions. It is from this point that the individual gets to the point of being exhausted. The best thing to initiate as a way of dealing with stress is allowing people deal with stress their own way since people have different ways of viewing issues and problems. The best way of dealing with stress could be adjusting to the problem if the problem is too big to bear. One should strive to build good habit and change his or her lifestyle if possible in order to adjust to the kind of stress.

Conclusion

The most important thing in managing stress is identifying the problems or stressors causing the stress, and then developing the mechanisms of dealing with the problem. Sometimes the problem could be too pressurizing and given that the stress is developed through internal causes such as personal demands, the person may adjust his or her lifestyle to fit to his or her current social status (Staton, 2011). People have different ways of dealing with stress an implication that every person can adequately deal with his or her own stressors before they broke up to a point of calling for the help of a psychiatrist. Given that the stress could be projected to head towards a depression status, a psychiatrist would be the best option to bring down the problem.

References

American Psychological Association. (2013). Dealing with Stress. Retrieved April 3, 2013, from psychcentral.com: http://psychcentral.com/lib/2007/dealing-with-stress/

Davis etal. (2007). Prenatal Exposure to Maternal Depression and Cortisol Influences Infant Temperament. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, volume 46 Issue 6 , 737.

Koolhaas, J. (2011). Stress revisited: A critical evaluation of the stress concept. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 35 , 1291–1301.

Lepore, M. (211, December). War Of The Stressers: Being Overworked Doesn’t Mean You’re The Best. Retrieved April 3, 2013, from HYPERLINK “http://www.thegrindstone.com/2011/12/14/career-management/war-of-the-stressers-” http://www.thegrindstone.com/2011/12/14/career-management/war-of-the-stressers-being-overworked-doesnt-mean-youre-the-best-219/

Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. (2013). Stress management: Identify your sources of stress. Retrieved April 3, 2013, from mayoclinic.com: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/stress-management/SR00031

Staton, H. (2011, December 11). Dealing With Stressors in the Modern World. Retrieved April 3, 2013, from clutterconversions.com: HYPERLINK “http://www.clutterconversions.com/2011/12/11/dealing-with-stressors-in-the-modern-” http://www.clutterconversions.com/2011/12/11/dealing-with-stressors-in-the-modern-world.

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