There are many dates related to the research work or emergence of the formal research on stress. But Hans Selye was the first to conduct the formal research on stress in 1956. When he noted that every individual wants to maintain the life by keeping constant the internal peace of human being. The balanced state of internal environment called homeostasis. The changes and imbalance of the internal environment due to external changes or challenges called stress.
Is Stress Good or Bad?
Basically, it is not negative thing, happened to us but the perception of it. This perception of stress explains its meaning. The response mechanism also affects the meaning of the stress, how one individual respond to it. In simple explanation is that response or perception of stress can change the effect of it either positive or negative. Stress can be called a feeling or condition, a person experiences when he or she has a perception about it “demands exceed the personal and social resources the individual is able to mobilize”. How we see stress? a perceived threat sticked with in any situation. But it has some psychological, emotional and physical which can alert us or make us irritated in every domain of life e.g. our social life, our personal life or our inner peace of mind.
Difference between Stress and Pressure
Pressure is experienced on daily basis. Keeps motivated and give drive to achieve. Stress can occur when pressure becomes excessive. Stress is reaction to excessive demands and pressures. It is when people worry that they cannot cope with it.
Symptoms of Stress
Cognitive Symptoms
Memory issues: The continuous and excess amount of stress leads to the short-term memory loss or in some cases the long-term memory also effected.
Difficulty or inability to pay attention: Another main problem with the stress symptom is the inability to pay attention on the present situation. It can be fade away with the stress recovery.
Poor judgment about things: It directly influences the brain activity and with the time, common matters of judgement disturbed and individual has faulty judgement about things like weight of the objects etc.
Being too negative person: There are many researches which shows that to excessive stress inhibits the firing of happy hormone called dopamine so, as a result the individual finds it difficult to see positivity in life.
Constant feeling of pressure: As told earlier, stress effects your gland system and makes your body in constant stretching of your muscles which creates the feeling of being pressured all the time.
Ruminating and anxious thoughts: Biological studies confirmed that stress creates the imbalance the hormones in the body which allows the Automatic Negative Thoughts.
Emotional Symptoms
Mood swings: Mood swings are common in the individual who are experiencing the stress symptoms. The activating of the Autonomic Nervous System induces the “fight or flight” response which also imbalance the mood of the individual. These types of emotional symptoms also occur due to imbalance in the hormonal disturbance due to stress condition in the body.
Feel irritated or short-tempered: Constant worry, stretching of the body muscles and mood swings creates the irritability in the person. He or she easily becomes angry on little things of daily life. But with the passage of the time, person can be normalizing itself with the recovery of the stress.
Inability to feel free or relaxed: Symptoms creates symptoms, in stress the symptoms of it overwhelmed the sufferer of stress. Without professional help, it becomes difficult or in some cases become impossible to feel relax or boredom. Due to tensing of the shoulders, head tissues and in legs, there is a tension in the body muscles so, the it become difficult for the person to feel relax and easy.
Feeling of loneliness or isolation: Constant irritation, imbalance of mood and other symptoms make relationships disturbed. Like symptoms of depression, person wants to spend time alone or finds it difficult to be socialized person. Because of the anhedonia, a condition in which a person fails to feel pleasure in any activity of life, person can not be socialized so he avoids gathering and social networking with friends or other loved ones.
Constant feeling of unhappiness: Anhedonia is the major symptom of depression which is an inability to find pleasure in anything. The minor form of anhedonia present in the symptoms of distress. Because of the all-other symptoms of stress, it is very difficult for the survivor to feel happy in the daily life.
Physical Symptoms
Bodily pain and muscular tension: The main and common physical symptom of stress is pain in shoulder, in neck or sometimes pain in legs. If not taken seriously then continuous headache is common. The mechanism of fight or flight response make the continuous tension in the body muscles. Sometimes, patient may be suffering with the high temperature and dizziness throughout the day.
Nausea and stomach disturbance: There is a direct relationship of the brain and digestive system. Any good or bad happened to the brain can induces the stomach disturbance. As the hormonal secretions directly affect the layout or mechanism of the digestive system so, the routine of daily eating habit increases or decrease. Like one may eat so much or one may eat too little depends upon the individual differences.
Cold and warm sensations: The acute episode of stress can induce the cold and warm bodily sensations depend on the specific situation. These sensations include the hot or cold sweating on forehead, on neck and in hands. The shivering of the hands or legs is also common in the some individuals.
Irregular heartbeat: At the time of acute stress, the heart rate usually increases. Because at the time of stress, our body goes to trigger fight or flight response. This response requires the more blood supply towards the body organ to escape from the point of danger.
Difficulty in breathing: As told before, the mechanism of fight or flight requires more oxygen than usual. So, the individual found it difficult to breathe normally. In this way, the shallow of breathing makes the person more tense and worried about the situation.
Behavioral Symptoms
It is the condition in which a person going through not only the psychological and physiological symptoms but also the behavioral deficiencies. From the behavioral problems, not just individual will suffer but also the other surrounding individual also suffers.
Imbalance of eating habits: As we know that, also the hormonal activity directly links with the stomach functioning. So, in the time of stress it disturbs the normal function pf stomach. In this way, individual eat overly means out of the appetite or eat very little than usual in the stress. This condition leads to the imbalance of diet and health issues.
Self-harming behaviors: In the serve form of stress, the patient may suffer with the self-harming behaviors like onychophagia (nail-biting), trichotillomania (hair pulling) and dermatillomania (skin pulling) etc. These types of behaviors may occur in the chronic type of stress.
Sleep disturbance: The sleep disturbance also has a link with the stress. Due to sleep disturbance or insomnia, a person can go into the stress condition. The individual may also suffer with the sleep disturbance.
Escaping from the responsibilities: In stressful conditions a person isn’t be able to take daily living responsibilities. He will adopt the habit of escaping from the assigned responsibilities. These responsibilities may include the responsibilities of work place, family duties or responsibilities. The person may be able to go to the work place but he will not work efficiently.
Stress is the manageable psychological condition but early intervention and therapy are required for it.
