Most people experience a degree of stress in everyday life. Explain how stress can affect our health. Are there any positive effects of stress?
Stress is a widespread problem that is faced today by almost every person at one or another time. Stress is defined as a state of emotional and mental pressure or tension due to adverse circumstances. From a Medical and scientific point of view, stress is described as any pressure or tension exerted on the psychological and emotional state. Stress can be physical, mental, and emotional it not only affects the body it whereas it creates anxiety in a person. Stress can occur because of external or internal situations. External stress comes from the environment, psychological, and social conditions and internal stress arise from the internal state like from medical procedure and illness. Stress is usually considered to be a negative term. However, it is evident that everything or every situation has both positive and negative impacts same as stress.
Every person feels stressed from time to time. Some people cope with stress easily whereas some can not recover from stressful situations within a short period. There are different types of stress, but they affect the physical and mental health risk of a person. Stress is thought to be positive when the stressful situation becomes an opportunity that escorts toward a great outcome. From stress conditions, some people are capable of getting to the severe level of stress more efficiently than others. It can occur for a short period and as well as its occurrence can be for an extended period. Short-term stress can be beneficial to health. It helps a person to cope best with potentially dangerous problems. Sometimes stress enhances the thinking level like how to take a route to get over these problems and as well as makes him strong enough to deal with these situations (“Stress Symptoms, Signs, and Causes: Improving Your Ability to Handle Stress”, 2018).
Stress on a daily basis includes workload, school, family, and other daily responsibilities. Stress also comes from sudden adverse changes like loss of job, divorce, and illness. Traumatic stress can be due to war, severe car accidents, and even natural disasters where chances of killing rise. Stress is a traumatic temporary effect on the mental health of the person. However, some common symptoms can affect the body, thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Stress sucks it not only effect mentally it also absorbs all the energy of the body to perform any work.
Not all stress is terrible sometimes it prepares people to perform well in some situations, e.g., in test performance and for new job interviews as well. Stress also helps to meet the challenges. In some cases, stress can be life-saving in response to the danger it prepares people on how to save themselves from threats. It enables people to bear risks and give solutions to flee from these life-threatening positions. In fatal situations heartbeat increases, the pulse rate rises brain starts thinking more, and it needs more oxygen for its performance. In fact, during stress, overall body performance increased to cope with these troubles.
Stress-related outcomes vary according to the person-environment and personality. However long-term stress leads to chronic health disorders. With constant stress, life-saving responses are suppressed from time to time. Due to continuous stress, life-saving reactions like the immune system, digestive, sleep, and reproductive system stop working correctly. Different people feel the level of stress differently some people undergo damage to the digestive system whereas some only get headaches, sadness, insomnia, anger, and irritability. People under chronic stress become frequent viral infections like feeling cold and getting flu regularly (Mullan, 2014).
Constant stress is the hard type of stress to be noticed at an early stage. Due to continuous stress, it is hardest for the person to come toward a normal health stage early as compared to traumatic or acute stress. During Constant stress, the body does not get the clear-cut signal to return to its normal functioning. However with the passage of time because of continuous stress pressure, serious health problem originates like high blood pressure, heart disease diabetes, and many other illnesses such as anxiety depression, etc.
Symptoms of stress can include nightmares, sleepiness, obesity, teeth grinding, and frequent urination. it also gives the feeling of loneliness and overreaction to minor issues. Sometimes owed to constant stress usage of alcohol, drug usage, and smoking increased. Whereas it also reduces sexual desire and increases anxiety, guilt, and nervousness. However, stress is also responsible for the reduction and increasing level of appetite. It was also responsible for weight loss and weight gain without diet (“How stress affects your body and behavior”, 2018).
People who are stressed usually make poor food decisions they just food as for their comfort and nothing else. Sleep deprivation because of stress has a small but constant effect on eating habits. Mostly stressed people go for chips and doughnuts. Stress disturbs the hormone level for these hormones are ghrelin and leptin which are responsible for the regulation of food desire. According to different literature, it is observed that not all people gain weight some also lose weight during stress. Some people under stress lose their appetite, and they go into the category of weight loss.
The stress put a more negative effect on pregnant women. When a pregnant lady becomes stressed hormones that are needed for the growth of the baby disrupt the health of the growing baby. Particularly maternal stress leads to schizophrenia, autism, and reduced cognitive talent in kids. stress is responsible for the adverse effect on the main body organs as well. According to different research, stress suppresses the growth of new neurons in the hippocampus. Chronic stress inflammation causes severe kind of depression. In short, stress is considered a significant risk for the causes of diseases. It in fact severely affects health whether it is physical or mental health (“9 horrible ways that stress messes with your body — and what you can do about it”, 2018).
Last but not least stress not only destroys happiness but is also responsible for the destruction of mental peace. It let down the person physically, mentally emotionally and swaps the real joy of life. Stress has many side effects. These are mood swings, crying habits, suicidal thoughts, overwhelmed feelings, difficulty in making a decision, suspicious feelings, impatience, dreadful thoughts anger, and frustration. However, stress can be controlled and even can be eliminated. It all depends on the type of stress. Acute stress can be managed and end in a short period compared to a chronic one. Stress can be controlled by having plenty of sleep because sleep is responsible for the consolidation of memories in the brain. Sleep is also accountable for the repair and growth of new brain cells. Sometimes chronic stress seems to be an unavoidable problem in life, but it can be controlled by applying proactive strategies. Eat a healthy diet because when the person is healthy can cope and even can fight stress and overcome this issue in good manners so, be thought what kind of food you are taking. By having nutritious and healthy diet body energy will boost, and it put a positive effect on overall health. When you are stressed take a long breath it will remove stress and lees the pressure on the mind and whole body. Indulge yourself in healthy and positive activities like exercise yoga, and laughing because it relieves a stressed condition and improves situations. Medication can be used to overcome this severe problem (“Five tips to help manage stress”, 2018).
References:
- How stress affects your body and behaviour. (2018). Mayo Clinic. Retrieved 24 February 2018, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/stress-symptoms/art-20050987
- Mullan, B. (2014). Sleep, Stress and Health: A Commentary. Stress And Health, 30(5), 433-435. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/smi.2605
- Stress Symptoms, Signs, and Causes: Improving Your Ability to Handle Stress. (2018). Helpguide.org. Retrieved 24 February 2018, from https://www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/stress-symptoms-signs-and-causes.htm
- 9 horrible ways that stress messes with your body — and what you can do about it. (2018). INSIDER. Retrieved 24 February 2018, from http://www.thisisinsider.com/health-effects-of-stress-2017-8#it-can-also-wreak-havoc-on-your-hormones-5
- Five tips to help manage stress. (2018). http://www.apa.org. Retrieved 24 February 2018, from http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/manage-stress.aspx
