Stress Health Article

Definition

Stress is defined as an organism's total response to environmental demands or pressures. When stress was first studied in the 1950s, the term was used to denote both the causes and the experienced effects of these pressures. Since the 1990s, however, the word stressor has been used for a stimulus that provokes a stress response. One recurrent disagreement among researchers concerns the definition of stress in humans. The issue is whether it is primarily an external response that can be measured by changes in glandular secretions, skin reactions, and other physical functions—or if it is an internal interpretation of, or reaction to, a stressor, or both.

Description

Stress in humans results from interactions between persons and their environment that are perceived as straining or exceeding their adaptive capacities and threatening their well-being. The element of perception indicates that human stress responses reflect differences in personality, as well as differences in physical strength or general health. Researchers have found that stressors can be:

• acute, such as a disaster or death of a loved one
• sequential, such as events leading up to a job promotion or a move
• intermittent, such as college exams
• chronic, such as living with a life-threatening illness, being in an unhappy marriage, or living in poverty

Risk factors for stress-related illnesses are a mix of personal, interpersonal, and social variables. These factors include lack or loss of control over one's physical environment, and lack or loss of social support networks. People who are dependent on others (e.g., children or the elderly) or who are socially disadvantaged (i.e., because of race, gender, education level, or similar factors) are at greater risk of developing stress-related illnesses. Other risk factors include feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, extreme fear or anger, and cynicism or distrust of others.

Causes and symptoms

The causes of stress can include any event or occurrence that a person considers a threat to his or her coping strategies or resources. Researchers generally agree that a certain degree of stress is a normal part of a living organism's response to the inevitable changes in its physical or social environment, and that positive, as well as negative, events can generate stress as well as negative occurrences. Stress-related disease, however, results from excessive and prolonged demands on an organism's coping resources.

The symptoms of stress can be either physical and psychological. Stress-related physical illnesses, such as irritable bowel syndrome, heart attack, and chronic headache, result from long-term overstimulation of a part of the nervous system that regulates the heart rate, blood pressure, and digestive system. Stress-related emotional illness results from inadequate or inappropriate responses to major changes in one's life situation, such as marriage, completing one's education, becoming a parent, losing a job, or retiring. Psychiatrists sometimes use the term adjustment disorder to describe this type of illness. In the workplace, stress-related illness often takes

the form of burnout—a loss of interest in, or ability to perform, one's job—due to long-term high stress levels.

According to the American Institute of Stress:

• Forty-three percent of all adults suffer adverse health effects due to stress.
• Seventy-five to 90% of all visits to primary care physicans (PCPs) are for stress-related complaints or disorders.
• An estimated 1 million workers are absent on an average workday due to stress-related complaints. Stress is believed to be responsible for more than half of the 550 million workdays lost annually because of absenteeism.
• Stress has been linked to all the leading causes of death, including heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, cirrhosis, and suicide.
• Nearly half of all American workers suffer from symptoms of burnout, a disabling reaction to stress on the job.
• Workplace violence is rampant. There are almost 2 million reported instances of homicide, aggravated assault, rape, or sexual assault. Homicide is the second leading cause of fatal occupational injury and the leading cause of death for working women.