Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
chronic versus acute stress
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: chronic versus acute stress
Stress once served as a lifesaving response to threatening events such as being hunted by a predator or hunting prey. The stress response helped our ancestors survive and stress provide important benefits, muscles are be primed, attention is focused, and nerves are ready for action, all of which give us the capacity to fight or to run away from danger. While stress once served a role in our ancient lives, the effects of stress in our modern world take a toll on our bodies and health. The impact of stress can be seen in all major systems of the body, while it may be impossible to avoid stress, there are steps people can take to reduce the negative impacts of stress.
What is stress? The interpretation of stress has changed overtime. Was once a lifesaving condition, where your body would pump adrenaline and glucocorticoids in your body to stimulate and increase the rate at which they function so that you may fight your way out a situation and escape. Instead, now people deal with negative physical and psychological symptoms from excessive amounts of stress, and it increases as you experience social and psychological tumult throughout your life.
Stress Role
Today stress can still play an important positive function in our lives by being beneficial, but it will have negative effects on your mind and body. Some people look for stress, such as looking for an adventure, riding a rollercoaster. This would be an example of acute stress. Acute stress is short-lived, and not last long. It can be beneficial and help create motivation. For example, when a deadline is approaching, stress may help you to focus and complete your task before the deadline. College students or students in general use this type of stress often to complet...
... middle of paper ...
...pecial." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2013.
.
"No More Medicines - Articles on Dealing with Stress." No More Medicines - Articles on Dealing with
Stress. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Dec. 2013. .
"Stress Symptoms, Signs, and Causes." Stress Symptoms, Signs & Causes: Effects of Stress Overload.
N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2013. .
Brain Facts: A Primer on the Brain and Nervous System. Washington, D.C.: Society for
Neuroscience, 2002. Print.
National Geographic: Stress: Portrait of a Killer. Perf. Robert Sapolsky. National Geographic,
2008. Netflix.
"Slacker or Go-Getter? Brain Chemical May Tell." LiveScience.com. Jennifer Welsh, 1 May 2012.
Web. 06 Oct. 2013.
Stress, as defined as a reaction to a stimulus that breaks our physical and mental harmony, is ubiquitous. However, stress has two sides – the bad and the good, in which the latter is mostly overlooked as most people suffer from the affliction of the former.
Stress means different things to different people and stress effects people in different ways. Some people think stress is something that happens to them such as an injury or a promotion and others think that stress is what happens to our mind, body and behaviors in response to an event. While stress does involve events and how one responds to them these are not the critical factors, but our thoughts about the situation in which we are involved are the critical factors. Essentially, stress exists whenever homeostasis is disturbed or cannot be maintained (Stress and the Social System Course Guide, 2013). Homeostasis refers to the body's ability to keep the internal chemical and physical environments constant. As your body begins to react to stress several changes occur. These changes include increased heart rate, blood pressure and secretion of stimulatory hormones. Ones body prepares itself in stressful situations to either stand ground and fight or to flee from the situation. Walter Cannon called this stressful reaction the fight-or-flight response (Greenberg, 2012).
(AC 1) Stress is defined as the state when people are experiencing difficulties in coping with the situations they are in due to the lacking of abilities or knowledge to handle them (Anxiety UK, ND). These situations are often referred as stressors. The way how individuals are reacting to these stressors is referred as stress response.
Everyone everywhere has experienced stress with something they have dealt with in life. Whether it is school, paying bills, managing a busy schedule or work, stress affects everyone. Although everyone experiences stress, many people don’t actually know what stress is. Stress is the physical response of the body to harmful situations that threaten someone’s well being. When someone says “stress”, the word is automatically associated with a negative effect on people but small doses of stress can benefit a person, if used to correctly. Everyone’s stress level is different and the amount of stress that can be handled varies from person to person but a stress overload will not benefit anyone. “When you feel threatened, a chemical reaction occurs in your body to allow you to act in a way to prevent injury” (“Stress Management Health Center”). The chemical that is released when stressed is known as cortisol, also known a stress hormone. “Cortisol is like a long-term form of adrenaline, produced in the adrenal gland when the body is under pressure” (“The Effects of Stress on Your Reproductive Health and Fertility”). Adrenaline is also released to send the body into, what is known as, emergency action (“Stress Symptoms, Signs and Causes”). This emergency action speeds up reactions preformed by the body and the mind. This is a way of protecting the body. While in emergency action, this stress caused by threatening situations can save your life. In emergency situations, you are given “extra strength to defend yourself, for example, or spurring you to slam on your brakes to avoid a car accident” (“Stress Management Health Center”). Signs of being in this emergency action are a racing heart, blood pressure rises, quickening of breath and tigh...
Life is full of obstacles and has shown people that stress is very common and a part of life. When you are running around all the time like you are in an emergency mode, your body will pay the price. What some people do not know is that stress can actually be helpful and can cause a positive effect on you. It can serve as a motivation and be useful under pressure. Without stress, our lives would be boring and pointless.
Hans Selye defined stress as “the non-specific response of the body to any demand for change.” He later defined it as “the rate of wear and tear on the body.” Stress can be good because the pressure placed on someone can motivate them to complete the tasks ahead of them. From this, small amounts of stress can be positive. However, long periods of stress wear the body down and begin to have negative effects on the body which could be long term.
"Stress is a natural physical and mental reaction to both good and bad experiences which can be beneficial to your health and safety." (8 Ways Stress Is More Dangerous Than You Think) Everyone 's body responds to stress by releasing hormones, also, you brain receives more oxygen. Stress starts to occur when we become worried about a task or responsibilities we face. Major stress is called chronic stress. It can cause symptoms that can affect your health in a larger way. Some people may say that they succeed more under stress, but sadly, that’s rarely the case. Research has shown that "stress makes a person more likely to make mistakes" (Stress Symptoms, Signs, & Causes). For most people, stress is extremely normal for them that they don 't see it as anything but ordinary. However, stress can motivate someone while under pressure and even get you through a tough or dangerous
Stress is not always harmful, many individuals need a bit of low levels of stress to improve their performance. For example, students preparing for an exam will be motivated to do exceptionally well on the exam. High levels of stress will increase in anxiety, depression, hopelessness, and tension.
Stress is the combination of psychological, physiological, and behavioral reactions that people have in response to events that threaten or challenge them. Stress can be good or bad. Sometimes, stress is helpful, providing people with the extra energy or alertness they need. Stress could give a runner the edge he or she needs to persevere in a marathon, for example. This good kind of stress is called eustress. Unfortunately, stress is often not helpful and can even be harmful when not managed effectively. Stress could make a salesperson buckle under the pressure while trying to make a sales pitch at an important business meeting, for example. Moreover, stress can increase the risk of developing health problems, such as cardiovascular disease and anxiety disorders. This bad kind of stress is called distress, the kind of stress that people usually are referring to when they use the word stress.
Acute stress is the second types of stress. In contrast, acute stress can comes quickly and disappears quickly. The stressors who suffer acute stress “can either be positive (Eustress) or more distressing” (Meenakshisundaram, 2012, p.101). Normally, type of stress can be felt throughout everyone’s life such as in financial problems, the death of a loved one, academic problems and the break up of a relationship.
Stress is defined as “any circumstances that threaten or are perceived to threaten one’s well-being and thereby tax one’s coping abilities” (Weiten & Lloyd, 2006, p. 72). Stress is a natural event that exists literally in all areas of one’s life. It can be embedded in the environment, culture, or perception of an event or idea. Stress is a constant burden, and can be detrimental to one’s physical and mental health. However stress can also provide beneficial effects; it can satisfy one’s need for stimulation and challenge, promote personal growth, and can provide an individual with the tools to cope with, and be less affected by tomorrow’s stress (Weiten & Lloyd, 2006, p. 93).
First, stress is defined as an unpleasant state of emotional and physiological arousal that people experience in situations that they perceive as dangerous or threatening to their well being (Patel, 14). Stress is a universal feeling to everyone but the word stress means different things to different people. Some people define stress as events or situations that cause them to feel tension, pressure or negative emotions such as anxiety or anger (Patel, 15). Other people may view stress as a process involving a person’s interpretation and response to a threatening event. In any case, stress has many facets of how one perceives and responds to the certain predicament that is ailing them.
Have you ever felt overwhelmed? Continuous worrying about a certain situation you are facing? Well, these are a few signs of stress. Stress is the physiological and psychological response that either threatens or challenges a person’s situation to adapt or adjust to it. There is a great amount of evidence shown that a prolonged amount of stress can cause health issues. The way the body functions when stressed is what causes health problems to arise. Stress works differently among people and many models, research and articles gives us a closer look into the health and stress perception.
Stress is a reaction to external and internal pressure. It is a normal function that helps people in their daily lives ( ). Without some level of stress, individuals wouldn't have the motivation to meet deadlines or complete projects ( ). However normal stress can become a burden over a long period of time and this leads to chronic stress. Chronic stress is what people are referring to when they say that they are "stressed out" ( ). Stress can become even more overwhelming if chronic stress goes into overload, this is what is known as distress ( ...
Stress is in our everyday lives. We allow things such as the way we live, school, work, family, relationships etc to stress us out. Some people deal with stress way different from others. Some may know how to cope with stress better than others. We allow stress to take a major toll over our lives when we are suppose to fight it, but a lot of people can’t do that. Stress makes you act and do things that are not like yourself. Stress is a negative word; it comes in all different shapes and forms.