Merriam-Webster Dictionary describes stress as “force, pressure, strain; … force producing change in shape of body”. Walter Cannon, a physiologist at Harvard Medical School, in the early part of this century, first described the body’s reactions to stress. “When a person is confronted with a sudden frightening situation, and his heart begins to pound, he feels breathless, his muscles tense, the body is prepared to confront the threat, or to run away.” Dr. Cannon was the researcher who first identified this stress reaction as the “fight or flight response”.
Stress may have different meanings for different individuals. Here are a few of them:
• Stress is the body’s physical, mental and chemical reaction to circumstances that frighten, excite, confuse, endanger, or irritate.
• Stress is what prepares you to handle things you are unfamiliar with, or things that appear to threaten you.
• Stress is essentially the rate of all the wear and tear caused by life.
• Stress is the effect upon the person of broken or damaged relationships between the person and God, the person and others, and the person and himself/herself, resulting in actual physical changes within a being.
• Stress is a word referring to the effect the mind exerts on the body, and occurs when combined tensions of life become greater than a person’s ability to handle them.
Dr. Hans Selye, a noted endocrinologist of years ago, states that when we are born, each one of us inherits a certain amount of ability to adapt, to change, to cope and to handle stress stimulus, whether positive or negative. How each one of us reacts to the stressor or stimulus varies. Some people like a lot of stimulation and challenges. Others, with the same amount of stimulation, feel threatened and inundated.
Dr. Selye tells the story of a woman in Australia who appeared on a television quiz show. When told by the emcee that she had just won $100,000, she had a heart attack and died. The TV show was never aired, but the sponsors offered a videotape of the show to the woman’s family, so they could see how happy she was when she died. This illustrates that even a happy event can be overwhelming for some people.
In many instances, we choose whether stress will be a blessing or a curse. Thus, we have the term “stress management”.
Dr. Archibald D. Hart, in his book, “The Hidden Link Between Adrenaline And Stress”, states, “No one can live without experiencing some degree of stress. You may think that only serious diseases or intensive physical or mental injury can cause stress. This is false. Crossing a busy intersection, exposure to draft, or even a sheer joy are enough to activate the body’s stress mechanism to some extent. Stress is not even necessarily bad for you; it is the spice of life; for any emotion, any activity, causes stress.”
In the early 1960s, two physiologists (Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe) studied stress and its effects on the body. Their research also led them to discover that any activity – positive or negative, creates a stressful reaction or physical changes on the body. They found a way of rating certain human experiences or activities by developing the social readjustment rating scale. Each experience or activity mentioned on this scale is given points to measure the level of effect on the body. For example, they discovered that the most stressful event in a human life is the death of a spouse. Thus, they rated that experience with 100 points. Here are a few more examples on the social readjustment rating scale – notice how many points are given to each activity or experience; notice the positive and negative activities.
Doctors Holmes and Rahe discovered that individuals who accumulated less than 150 points in one year, have a 30 percent chance of having stress-related illness. Those who have accumulated 150 to 299 points in one year, have a 50 percent chance of getting an illness. Those who accumulated 300 points and above during a year, have an 80 percent chance of becoming ill.
Several years ago, a dear friend of mine lost his father in an accident. That same year, he went through a painful divorce immediately after the birth of his first child. To make things worse, his closest friend died of lung cancer a few months later. Also, he took on a new job and was transferred to a new territory. To add to the stressful activities, he began a doctoral program that same year and developed a new romantic relationship. At the end of that year, he became seriously ill and was rushed into the emergency room with bleeding ulcers. He was not able to manage the effect of these activities on his body and mind. Let us total the points he accumulated:
He got a divorce – 73 points.
His father died – 63 points.
Birth of his first child – 39 points.
Death of his close friend –– 37 points.
Transferred to a new territory – 29 points.
Change in residence – 20 points.
Beginning school – 20 points.
Total points – 281.
Notice that my friend accumulated 281 points – making a 50/50 percent chance that he would get sick – and he did develop ulcers. He was unable to properly manage his stress. Thus, it affected his body and his mind.
Now, I do not want to frighten you into thinking that you will also get sick if all of these things should happen to you. I am simply trying to illustrate that all we do does produce wear and tear on the human body, and we must take deliberate steps to manage our stress by living well-adjusted, positive lifestyles.
• Barrington H. Brennen is a marriage and family therapist. Send your questions or comments to question@soencouragement.org or write to P.O. Box CB-13019, Nassau, The Bahamas, or visit www.soencouragement.org or call 242-327-1980 or 242-477-4002.
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