USS 2019/2

WHAT IS STRESS?

Hans Selye defined stress as the body’s nonspecific response to any demand, whether it is caused by or
results in pleasant or unpleasant stimuli. It is essential to differentiate between the unpleasant or harmful
variety of stress termed distress, which often connotes disease, and eustress, which often connotes
euphoria. During both eustress and distress, the body undergoes virtually the same non-specific responses
[5] to the various positive or negative stimuli acting upon it. However, eustress causes much less damage
than distress. This demonstrates conclusively that it is how an individual accepts stress that determines
ultimately whether the person can adapt successfully to change. Selye hypothesized a General Adaptation
or Stress Syndrome; this General Stress Syndrome affects the whole body. Stress always manifests itself by
a syndrome, a sum of changes, not by simply one change.

[10] There are three components to the General Stress Syndrome. The first stage, which is termed the alarm
stage, represents a mobilization of the body’s defensive forces. In other words, the body is preparing for
the “fight or flight” syndrome. This involves a number of hormones and chemical excreted at high levels,
as well as an increase in heart rate, blood pressure, perspiration, respiration rate, etc. In the second phase
— the stage of resistance — the body becomes adaptive to the challenge and even begins to resist it.
[15] The length of this stage of resistance is dependent upon the body’s innate and stored adaptation energy
reserves and upon the intensity of the stressor. Just as any machine wears out even if it has been properly
maintained, so do living organisms that sooner or later become the victim of this constant wear and tear.
The acquired adaptation is lost if the individual is subject to still greater exposure to the stressor. The
organism enters into the third and final stage —the exhaustion stage — and then dies because it has used
[20] up its resources of adaptation energy. Thankfully, few people ever experience this last stage!

Stress diseases are maladies caused principally by errors in the body’s general adaptation process. They
will not occur when all the body’s regulatory processes are properly checked and balanced. They will not
develop when adaptation is facilitated by improved perception and interpretation. The biggest problems
with derailing the General Stress Syndrome and causing disease is an absolute excess, deficiency,
[25] or disequilibrium in the amount of adaptive hormones — for example, corticoid, ACTH, and growth
hormones produced during stress. Unfortunately, if stress is induced chronically, our defense response
lowers its resistance since fewer antibodies are produced and an inflammatory response dwindles.

Stress is a natural physical and mental reaction to life experiences. Everyone expresses stress from time
to time. Anything from everyday responsibilities like work and family to serious life events such as a
[30] new diagnosis, war, or the death of a loved one can trigger stress. For immediate, short-term situations,
stress can be beneficial to your health. It can help you cope with potentially serious situations. Your body
responds to stress by releasing hormones that increase your heart and breathing rates and ready your
muscles to respond.

Yet if your stress response doesn’t stop firing, and these stress levels stay elevated far longer than is
[35] necessary for survival, it can take a toll on your health. 

Excerpt from the text What is Stress?. The American Institute of Stress stress.org, 17/03/2019.