How Stress Affects Our Health Essay

Introduction

Stress is a prevalent issue being encountered nowadays because life is full of demands, deadlines, and frustrations. Each person can experience stress in any of their encounters in life. Stress is defined as a modification in the psychological, physical, and emotional-well-being of an individual (Stults and Sinha 2014, p.82). It occurs when negative things happen as well as good ones. Getting fired at work leads to stress as well as getting a career or job promotion. But on most occasions, we view stress as a bad experience due to the overabundance of its negative experiences. The behavior of people and how they respond to stress influences diseases and health. This essay discusses the causes of stress, symptoms, how it affects our health, and how to deal with stress and live a healthy life.

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Causes of Stress

Stress affects every individual, poor, rich, old, or young. Our thoughts can as well lead to stress and make our body's vulnerable to disease (Salleh 2008, p.9).What causes distress (negative stress) or positive stress (eustress) depends on the individual, although certain situations tend to be stressors for every individual. Almost every fluctuation in our surrounding - even pleasing changes like vacations - requires some coping modes, and a bit of stress is essential in our adaptation process. Although beyond some circumstances, stress ends up being distress.

Some common stressors include conflicts and frustrations. Daily hustles involving finances, health, social activities, family, and work, physical causes such as changes in the climate, pollutions, and noise (Salleh 2008, p.9). Infections or body injuries, environmental threats such as accidents, and life changes which push us to adapt to different coping mechanisms. A study by the American Psychological Association (2006), shows that 43% of adults suffer severe health effects from stress. Stress is also a response to a sense of threat whether it is imagined or real. The response to stress is an individuals' body trying to protect them. Things such as relationships, family, work, and money all have a responsibility in one's stress issues. Not only does it affect our wellbeing but also has an impact on our behavior, feelings, thoughts, and body.

How Stress Influences Diseases

Stress is a character in 5 out of 6 top causes of death. It is estimated that seventy-five percent to ninety-percent of hospital visits are due to issues related to stress (Salleh2008, p. 10). These statistics portray a trend between stress and illnesses, and stress and spending a lot of cash. The culprit responsible for a majority of our health issues is looking at us every day. Health is not only being free from diseases but is also a state of complete social, spiritual, psychological, and physical wellbeing (Bircher and Kuruvilla2014, p.364). Stress in one's life circumstances is linked to individuals getting ill.

When stressed, our bodies enter into a state of flight or fight reaction. Our bodies then instantly respond by discharging stress hormones (adrenaline) which causes our muscles to tense up, increases heartbeat, blood pressure rises, and the mind gets alert ready for a threat (Dooley2011, p.16). These fluctuations being temporary, they are viewed to be naturally safe. The main issue comes in when the body gets repeatedly subjected to negative stressors, which will then lead to a state of chronic stress. At this juncture, the released hormones for protecting the body, in turn, attack the body. Chronic stress results in larger risks of several diseases such as obesity, depression, cancer, and heart illnesses (Yudkin et al., 2000, p. 210). Cortisol hormones increase cravings especially for carbohydrates and fats that is why many individuals who are stressed tend to gain weight in their abdominal area (Gibson 2006, p.55).

Very high-stress levels also lead to a rise in levels of cholesterol, high blood pressure, and even influences an individual's immune system and raise the possibilities of one getting attacked by infections and colds. It also speeds up the process of aging, contributes to infertility, and damages the normal functioning of the brain leaving a person vulnerable to mental illnesses like depression and anxiety. In chronic stress, cortisol hormone affects neurotransmitters and makes it hard for the brain to recover memory (De KloetJoels and Holsboer2005, p.464).Stress also causes a condition called trichotillomania whereby individuals tend pulling out their hair (Shusterman et al., 2009, p.638). Moreover, psychological responses like irritability, depression, hopelessness, anxiety, and an overall feeling of being unable to deal with worldly circumstances results from stressful situations. Therefore, for us to cut down on chronic diseases and hospital bills, we need to deal with stress since it is the main crisis in the healthcare sector.

Symptoms of Stress

While dealing with or experiencing stress, an individual portrays several symptoms. For instance, behavioral symptoms including using drugs, cigarettes, and alcohol as a form of relaxation decisions (Repettiand Seeman1997, p.413), sleeps too little/a lot (Partinem 1994, p.89) eats less/much, prone to accidents, interpersonal difficulties, and inability to make. Physiological symptoms such as nausea, increased heart rate, chest pain, body pains, headaches, breathing complications, and chronic fatigue. Emotional and psychological symptoms which consist of feelings of being overwhelmed, irritability, moodiness, anxiety, constant worrying, lack of concentration, memory problems, anger, and depression.

Positive Effects of Stress

Stress is not harmful at all times since low-stress levels are known to contribute to improved performances. For instance, when forthcoming examinations stress a student, he/she will be forced to prepare well and, in the end, achieve good results. Positive stress is often referred to as 'eustress.' Stress is said to be positive if the circumstances provide prospects for getting rewards. This kind of stress leads to positive effects since it is seen as a motivating factor or condition and when not present, a person lacks the essential spirit for ultimate performance.

Coping with Stress and Improving Health

Certain arbitrating factors determine the level of damage that can be caused by stress. For instance, the presences of good social support, as well as effective coping mechanisms aid in lessening stress (Ozbay et al., 2007, p.35). How one views or perceives stress is also crucial in managing stressful situations. For instance, an individual can fail to view a condition as stressful whereas the same issue may be viewed as very stressful to someone else. Additionally, personality traits such as emotional stability or hardiness aids in withstanding impacts of stress. Type 'A' personalities are always at risk of being affected negatively by stress-related illnesses such as cardiovascular ailments.

Mindfulness treats the original cause of a problem. It provides us with the capability of being in harmony with ourselves and be happy in an overwhelming and demanding world (Carlson and Garland2005, p.278). Reducing levels of stress can make one feel ok and relaxed as well as improve and shield an individuals' health in the long-term. Feelings of enthusiasm, contentment, joy, and happiness can reduce risks of heart illnesses. We should, therefore, improve our positive feelings by sacrificing out time for fun activities daily and try to deal with stressful situations positively.

Conclusion

Concludingly, we can see that acute or chronic stress can inflict a mess on our life's particularly our health. Individuals who are facing financial insecurities due to a job loss or engaging in a career which causes a continuous burden on them, experience situations which can cause constant stress thus consigning the body to a state of distress. Without achieving relief, the body gets pushed to its limits prompting bodily responses to be life-threatening. Experiencing stress continuously also affects the immune system thus making it unable to protect the body against diseases and illnesses. In turn, this intensifies the risk of getting chronic diseases and illnesses like cancer, diabetes, stroke, and heart attack.

Some individuals assume that stress has since turned out to be normal in life and with the current state of the world; this assumption seems to be certain. Nevertheless, this idea does not change the fact that if attempts are made to eliminate or relieve stress, we will get exposed to diseases and illnesses, and end up having emotional and mental disorders. Our apparent external stressors might never end since we cannot control all environmental factors. What we need to control and harness is our inner selves and how we respond to challenging situations. Therefore, the secret to managing stress on its early stages is for one to be more aware of the bodily changes despite the surrounding circumstances since sustaining stress will only contribute to more harm than help in life.

References

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Carlson, L.E., and Garland, S.N., 2005. Impact of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) on sleep, mood, stress and fatigue symptoms in cancer outpatients. International journal of behavioral medicine, 12(4), pp.278-285.

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Shusterman, A., Feld, L., Baer, L., and Keuthen, N., 2009. Affective regulation in trichotillomania: evidence from a large-scale internet survey. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 47(8), pp.637-644.

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Yudkin, J.S., Kumari, M., Humphries, S.E. and Mohamed-Ali, V., 2000. Inflammation, obesity, stress and coronary heart disease: is interleukin-6 the link? Atherosclerosis, 148(2), pp.209-214.