Stress and Health: A Seminar Paper
Stress and Health: A Seminar Paper
Stress refers to a response to a challenge or a change. The reaction is nonspecific and may sometimes involve emotional and physical tension (Godoy et al., 2018). Health is a multifactorial parameter including the complete well-being in an individual’s social, physical, and mental aspects, not just the lack of disease in the person. Stress can sometimes impede the well-being of an individual in all the aspects that encompass health. The relation between stress and health is undeniable, with stress being incriminated in influencing individuals’ social and physical health (Walinga, 2018). Understanding the link between stress and health has made it essential to develop effective and efficient health management strategies. Furthermore, understanding the link also helps appreciate situations where stress is essential and valuable and applying stress in various places and situations (Godoy et al., 2018).
Hans Selye first defined General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS), characterized by three stages. These stages are alarm reaction, resistance, and exhaustion in their respective chronological order. An alarm reaction, when an individual is subjected to a challenge or a change, the hypothalamus receives a distress indication or signal. The signal leads to the signaling of glucocorticoid production, which stimulates the generation of cortisol and adrenaline by the autonomic nervous system. The hormones prepare an individual to react to the challenge of change, referred to as a stressor (Burgess, 2017). The resistance stage attempts to counteract the physiological changes in the alarm reaction stage through the parasympathetic system. If the stressor is removed at this stage, physiological normalcy is restored. This stage is characterized by physical and emotional tension, making people highly irritable and distracted. The third stage is exhaustion. This stage occurs when the stressor is prolonged, and as the name suggests, the body has started losing its ability to restore normalcy. Exhaustion predisposes the affected individuals to physical, social, and mental infirmities if an effort is not made to remove the stressor (Burgess, 2017).
Hans Selye’s GAS has greatly influenced understanding the types and causes of stress. The classification of the different types of stress depends on identifying the stressors and the specific area in a person that the stressor effects to cause the alarm reaction. The understanding that different stressors have different physiological responses has formed a basis for identifying and including different factors as causes of stress. The GAS has also guided and understood the stages that an individual will undergo after exposure to a specific cause of stress (Gans, 2022).
There are several types of stress with respective causes in each case. Physical stress is caused by exhaustion, abuse of drugs, physical injury, noise, and illness. In contrast, psychological stress is caused by perceptual, cognitive, and emotional stress, which affects an individual’s mental capability. Psychosocial stress is caused by loss of family or friends, financial disenfranchisement, and the absence of social support for an individual. Another kind of stress is psychospiritual stress, which is brought about mainly by a conflict in a person’s values and spiritual beliefs (Fiedman, 2019). Identifying these cues to stress depended on analyzing different factors leading to people being in alarm reaction, resistance, or exhaustion stages of the General Adaptation syndrome.
Gans (2022) links the General Adaptation Syndrome and its cognitive, behavioral, and physiological influence on health. During the alarm reaction stage, the body produces adrenaline and cortisol, producing significant endocrinal physiological changes, such as high blood pressure, elevated heart rate, pupil dilation, flushing the skin, and increased alertness. All these are physiological changes in the fight or flight response. Both cognitive and behavioral changes characterize the exhaustion stage. The behavioral changes include irritability and frustration. A cognitive influence is the presence of poor concentration as the body battles off the stressor.
Most of the cognitive influences on health occur after prolonged exposure to a stressor until the body can no longer overcome the stressor. Here, profound cognitive difficulty may lead to severe mental illnesses, anxiety, and depression. An individual’s cognitive stability is threatened in this stage. One behavioral influence on health is insomnia (Gans, 2022).
Stress may appear to have only adverse effects, au contraire possible outcomes of stress (Liu, Vickers, Reed and Hadad, 2017). The benefits of stress are primarily associated with short-term exposure to a stressor. Huizen (2021) also proposed that a life without stress is unhealthy and has a downside. Stress may act as a spring of motivation in daily activities and enhance tasks’ performance and solving problems. In some circumstances, stress helps prepare an individual to flee to safety in the presence of an imminent threat. Even for a nurse, the physiological changes occurring in the alarm reaction stage are essential as one faces threats occasionally. Lengthened exposure to a trigger has been attributed to a negative influence on health. Some of the disadvantages of prolonged stress are insomnia, cognitive challenges such as forgetfulness, depression, anxiety, digestive challenges, poor concentration, and irritability. Individuals may also engage in drugs and substance abuse (Huizen, 2021).
In light of the numerous disadvantages caused by prolonged stress, stress management strategies are critical in mitigating the adverse effects. There is a need to develop such strategies to increase resilience, promote productivity and combat the persistent issue of mental illnesses. Management of stress employs strategies such as exercise, management of priorities, sharing through talking, and teaching the importance of acknowledging the signs when going through a stress response to foster seeking management options (Can et al., 2020).
Reference list
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