5.1: What is Stress?

Stress — just the word may be enough to set your nerves on edge. Everyone feels stressed from time to time. But, what does it mean when we say we have stress? And is all stress bad?

Stress is how the body reacts to a challenge or demand.

Stressor is something that causes stress. These could include natural disasters, big life changes, poverty or inequality, demanding jobs, relationships, or daily hassles like traffic.

Stress Response is how you respond to stress including physical, emotional, and behavioral responses. The bodies physical response to stress is termed the “Fight or Flight” reaction. Emotional responses might include feelings of anger, sadness, inability to focus, irritable, or anxiousness. Behavioral responses to stress might include sleep disturbances, aggression, avoiding the challenge, or use of drugs or alcohol.

A simple way to differentiate these terms is the following equation:

Stressor + Stress Response = Stress

Reflection: Your Stressors and Responses

Take a few minutes to think about times in your life where you were stressed.

Make a list of your stressors: What caused the stress? What challenge, demand, or situation triggered the stress?

Make a list of your common stress responses: How did you respond to the stress? Did you recognize physical changes in your body? Did you recognize emotional changes? Did you respond with positive or negative behaviors?Looking back on the times of stress, can you identify any opportunities you might have to change your responses that might have lowered the stress in your life?

Common Stressors

Stress may be recurring, short-term, or long-term and may include things like commuting to and from school or work every day, traveling for a yearly vacation, or moving to another home.

Common causes of short-term stress:

• Needing to do a lot in a short amount of time
• Having a lot of small problems in the same day, like getting stuck in traffic jam or running late
• Getting ready for a work or school presentation
• Having an argument

Common causes of long-term stress:

• Having problems at work or at home
• Having money problems
• Having a long-term illness
• Taking care of someone with an illness
• Dealing with the death of a loved one

Change is a leading cause of stress. Changes can be positive or negative, as well as real or perceived. Changes can be mild and relatively harmless, such as winning a race, watching a scary movie, or riding a rollercoaster. Some changes are major, such as marriage or divorce, serious illness, or a car accident. Other changes are extreme, such as exposure to violence, and can lead to traumatic stress reactions.

Physical Response: The Fight or Flight Response

Imagine how you would feel in the following situations:

• You are driving to school and you see an accident occur right in front of you! You swerve and avoid crashing into the cars.
• You just got a call from the police that something has happened to your family member.
• You are on a morning walk and an aggressive dog comes running toward you.

You might feel the following physical symptoms:

• Rapid heartbeat
• Sweaty palms
• Tense muscles or shaking
• Rapid breathing
• Nauseous

The symptoms you feel are a product of the bodies automatic physical reaction to stressors, called the Fight or Flight response. The Fight or Flight response is very important for our survival as it enables the body to take action quickly, and is intended to keep us out of (physical) harm’s way.

When a person senses that a situation demands action, the body responds by releasing chemicals into the blood. The hypothalamus signals the adrenal glands to release a surge of hormones that include adrenaline and cortisol. These stress hormones prepare the body to either fight off the stressor or flee from the stressor. Your heart rate increases to get more oxygenated blood to your muscles so you can prepare for action. Your breathing increases to get more oxygen. An increase in perspiration (sweating) keeps your body cool. These physiological effects are valuable when faced with a potentially dangerous situation.

Regardless of whether the stress experienced is negative or positive, small or extreme, the physical effects on the body are the same. For example, the stress hormones are produced whether you are stressed because of ongoing financial struggles or are stressed because you almost got in a bad car accident. Unfortunately, most of the stressors people face—work, school, finances, relationships—are a part of everyday life, and thus, inescapable. In modern life, we do not get the option of “flight” very often. We have to deal with those stressors all the time and find a solution. When you need to take an SAT test, there is no way for you to avoid it; sitting in the test room for five hours is the only choice. Lacking the “flight” option in stress-response process leads to higher stress levels in modern society. Living with constant stress that is constantly triggering a physical stress response can cause physical issues such as upset stomach, headaches, sleep problems, weight gain or loss, muscle aches, and heart disease.

Emotional and Behavioral Response

People respond to stress differently. For example, some people experience mainly digestive symptoms, while others may have headaches, sleeplessness, depressed mood, anger and irritability. Your emotional and behavioral responses to stressors in your life might include:

Psychological, emotional, or cognitive symptoms:

• Feeling heroic, euphoric or invulnerable
• Denial
• Anxiety or fear
• Worry about safety of self or others
• Irritability or anger
• Restlessness
• Sadness, moodiness, grief or depression
• Vivid or distressing dreams
• Guilt or “survivor guilt”
• Feeling overwhelmed, helpless or hopeless
• Feeling isolated, lost, lonely or abandoned
• Apathy
• Over identification with survivors
• Feeling misunderstood or unappreciated
• Memory problems/forgetfulness
• Disorientation
• Confusion
• Slowness in thinking, analyzing, or comprehending
• Difficulty calculating, setting priorities or making decisions
• Difficulty Concentrating
• Limited attention span
• Loss of objectivity
• Inability to stop thinking about the disaster or an incident

Behavioral or social symptoms:

• Change in activity levels
• Decreased efficiency and effectiveness
• Difficulty communicating
• Increased sense of humor/gallows humor
• Irritability, outbursts of anger, frequent arguments
• Inability to rest, relax, or let down
• Change in eating habits
• Change in sleep patterns
• Change in job performance
• Periods of crying
• Increased use of tobacco, alcohol, drugs, sugar or caffeine
• Hyper-vigilance about safety or the surrounding environment
• Avoidance of activities or places that trigger memories
• Accident prone
• Withdrawing or isolating from people
• Difficulty listening
• Difficulty sharing ideas
• Difficulty engaging in mutual problem solving
• Blaming
• Criticizing
• Intolerance of group process
• Difficulty in giving or accepting support or help
• Impatient with or disrespectful to others

Self-Assessment: Your Stress

After reading about common stressors and the stress responses, you might be interested in learning more about the stress in your life. A tool you can use to better understand your stress and your health is to take a Stress Self-Assessment. The following self-assessments are not used as a diagnosing tool, rather as a tool to help you become more self aware of stress you have so that you can make healthy lifestyle changes or seek medical assistance.

There are several Stress Self-Assessments available online, here are just a few:

• The Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory
• The Workplace Stress Scale
• Test Your Stress (Based on the Perceived Stress Scale)
• What Are Your Stress Triggers?