We all talk about Stress on a daily basis – Stress due to office work, travel, personal issues and a lot of things. But what is Stress?. Our mind and body undergo wear and tear while we live our life through continuously changing environment.
What is Stress?
Stress is actually the reaction of our body and mind towards the triggers like work, travel and other hectic activities in our daily life. Otherwise, Work Pressure, Travel Hassles, Personal Issues are all triggers only, that bring out Stress on our body and mind.
It is said that Stress is “the automatic fight-or-flight response in the body”. It is activated by adrenaline and other stress hormones in our body. These components simulate a number of Psychological changes in human beings. Increase in Heart Beat, Blood Pressure Levels, Blood Sugar and effects like Muscular Contraction, Dilated Pupils, Dry Mouth are all symptoms of Stress.
Any organism, when in danger, tries to defend itself. So, Stress is the body’s reaction to protect it from the dangers.
Good and Bad Stress
Stress is not bad always. There are good and bad Stress. How can that be?. When we do exercise, our body and mind is being put into stress. But the result? – we feel better after doing the exercise. Likewise, sex and intense creativity are also good forms of Stress.
Anxiety, tension, tiredness, fear, work pressure etc. create depression in us. We undergo Stress during depression. Hence these are not desirable Stress. Stress is an unavoidable factor in our daily life. When a change overwhelms the body’s ability to cope up with the change, Stress due to such changes are harmful. Stress then becomes Distress and creates undesirable emotions, behaviour, reactions and illness.
We can classify the cause of Stress as External and Internal. They are called Stressors. Similarly we have Positive and Negative Stress. We will look into these aspects in our next article.
