Understanding Stress

Running head: UNDERSTANDING STRESS 1

Understanding Stress And

Effective Stress Management

Nikko N. Imperial

Don Bosco College

UNDERSTANDING STRESS 2

Abstract

Stress is an overused term. People associate this term with threatening situations in their life. People must understand what stress is all about. It is very important for the people to know both sides, the nature of stress and the proper way of dealing with it through thorough understanding.

This paper focused on three areas regarding stress. These areas include: the definitions and concepts of stress, the sources of stress, and how people cope with stress. The researcher included the different definition of stress from different psychologists studying the matter. He also included the physiological aspect that is the human body's response to stress.

UNDERSTANDING STRESS 3

Definitions and Concepts of Stress

Stress is part of daily life. Many situations in life require people to change in some way like when they have to do a school project, follow simple traffic rules like following the red light, and to review for a quiz or exam. Obviously, these situations are not stressful because they are not accompanied by tension or threat. Imagine when one has to do a school project and has only two days before the deadline; to hurry for a very important appointment and suddenly stop at the signal of red light, to prepare for a quiz or an exam while taking care of a toddler. Under these conditions, the person involved might resort to stress. According to Morris (1996),"Stress refers to any environmental demand that creates a state of tension and threat and requires change and adaptation" (p.487). Stress here is the things that needed to be addressed before a man reaches a desired goal; the focus of stress is between man and its objective. To explain further, like in the previous example, the environment demands that the driver stop, wait and follow the traffic rules. The demand causes tension or threat to the driver because he had an appointment to attend and must be on time. As a result, the person is forced to adapt to that demand which following a simple traffic rule, therefore, under these circumstances the situation becomes stressful.

According to Lazarus and Folkman (1984),"Psychological stress is a particular relationship between the person and the environment that is appraised by the person as taxing or exceeding his or her resources and endearing his or her resources" (p.19). Stress in this case is the relationship to things that are beyond a person's capability to sustain. The emphasis of stress is between man and its relationship with the environment. In connection with this is a case study of Tina, a forty-one years old successful lawyer. She felt overwhelmed by the things she needed to do. Her niece needed money for her tuition, her associate in the office had to go on vacation and she had to take on his case load, her best friend was in marital crisis and needed her help, her husband was just recovering with hypertension, she had a pressing deadline to meet, and the list went on. To find time to take on all these concerns, Tina had been

foregoing her lunch break for several weeks and was doing paper works on weekends (Carandang, 2001).

Brown (1984), proposed, "The stress of life is any perception of the social environment and its dynamics believed to be a threat to psychological and social well being" (p.235). Stress is observation or a state of mind. Stress is limited to man's assessment of it as a threat.

UNDERSTANDING STRESS 4

Stress is not limited to the negative things or problems people daily encounter, the good things that happen to them can also cause stress because it requires people to change and adapt to meet a specific need. A wedding is exciting as well as stressful; a person adjusts relationships with parents, friends, old boy friend or girl friend and to his or her new spouse (Morris, 1996).

There is difference between pressure and stress. Pressure refers to the forces that act upon people and people react to. On the other hand, stress is the negative response when the pressure becomes great (Sutton, 2009).

Sources/ Causes of stress

The researcher mentioned earlier the primary cause of stress which is pressure. Pressure is also the same as stressors. Stressor refers to the situation of things that causes stress (Apruebo, 2005). Stressors are not limited to the life's challenges a person faces. Stressors come in different forms, physical, emotional, and behavioural. According to Helping Hands and Hearts Inc. (2009);the way people live, work, talk, function everyday contribute to the building up of stress.

Physical stressors

A physical cause of stress means the response of the human body to pressure that causes stress. For example, a student doing a research paper needs to meet the deadline for the first draft. This student did not have a topic yet and starts with nothing at all. As a response to this pressure, he procrastinates to finish it half-heartedly. As a result, he always stays late at night and his energy drained because of other requirements in school. "Lack of sleep: chronic fatigue, related health problems and lack of concentration "(Sutton, 2009, p.27) is a common physical source of stress; moreover, the Helping Hands and Hearts Inc. (HHAH) confirmed that people who work with their brains need more rest and sleep than manual workers. Mental fatigue and exhaustion is a common physical cause of stress.

Physical cause of stress also means environmental stress like excessive noise, smells, and pollution. An example of environmental stress is noise pollution. Noise as a physical stressor disturbs a person's feeling and interrupts a person's concentration. People under excessive

UNDERSTANDING STRESS 5

noise