WHAT IS STRESS?

INTRODUCTION

• A lot of research has been
• conducted into stress over the last 100 years. Something's have been
• agreed and some is still hotly debated.
• Intuitively we all feel that
• we know what Stress is, as it is something we have all experienced.
• However a definition is not that clear.

WHAT IS STRESS?

• Hans Selye was one of the
• found fathers of stress research.
• In 1956, "Stress is not
• necessarily something bad - it all depends on how you take it. The stress
• of exhilarating, creative successful work is beneficial, while that of
• failure, humiliation or infection is detrimental"
• Selye believed the
• biochemical effects of stress would be experienced irrespective of whether
• the situation was positive or negative.
• More research has been
• conducted and Stress is now viewed as a "Bad Thing" with a range
• of harmful biochemical and long term effects. These effects have rarely
• been observed in positive situations.
• The most commonly accepted
• definition is attributed Richard S. Lazarus. stress is a condition or
• feeling experienced when a person perceives that "demands
• exceed the personal and social resources the individual is able to
• mobilize."
• This could be rephrased as
• "… What we feel when we think we've lost control of events."

FIGHT-OR-FLIGHT

• Some early research on stress
• (by Walter Cannon, 1932) established the existence of the well-known
• "Fight or Flight" response.
• This work showed that when an
• organism experiences a shock or perceives a threat, it quickly releases
• hormones that help it survive.
• This hormone release, allows
• humans and other animals to run faster or fight harder.
• Typically increases heart
• rate and blood pressure. This delivers more oxygen and more blood sugar to power important muscles.
• Sweating also increases - this cools important muscles and keeps them efficient.
• They divert blood away from the skin to the core of our bodies, reducing blood loss if we are damaged.
• As well as this, these hormones focus our attention on the threat, to the exclusion of everything else.
• All of this significantly improves our ability to survive life-threatening events.

FIGHT-OR-FLIGHT

• - Not only life-threatening events trigger this reaction: We experience it almost any time we come across something unexpected or something that frustrates our goals.
• - Our response is often proportional. When the threat is small, the response is often small. Sometimes we don't even notice our response with the hustle and bustle of daily life.
• - The release of hormones, however, is not only positive.
• - In this state, we are excitable, anxious, jumpy and irritable.
• - This actually reduces our ability to work effectively with other people.
• - The intensity of our focus on survival interferes with our ability to make fine judgments by drawing information from many sources. We find ourselves more accident-prone and less able to make good decisions.
• - There are very few situations in modern working life where this response is useful. Most situations benefit from a calm, rational, controlled and socially sensitive approach.
• - In the short term, we need to keep this fight-or-flight response under control to be effective in our jobs. In the long term we need to keep it under control to avoid problems of poor health and burnout.

EUSTRESS & DISTRESS

• - The ideas of "eustress" (good stress) and "distress" (bad stress) were developed by Hans Selye, one of the early researchers on stress.
• - Selye believed that a mild level of stress encouraged animals and people to behave in a more active way, while an excessive level of stress would hamper their performance.
• - Since then, other people have drawn similar conclusions, substituting the idea of "stress" with the idea of "pressure". Framed in this way, this is an important and valuable idea. With all of its associations of unhappiness and loss of control, real stress is now seen as a bad thing in all circumstances.
• - The ideas of "eustress" and "distress" are therefore no longer useful. Indeed, they may be harmful in that they may encourage managers to try to motivate subordinates by increasing the amount of unpleasant stress they experience. The error in this approach is clear if you remember that "pressure" is a different thing from "stress".

STRESS WARNING

• Warning: Stress can cause severe health problems and, in extreme cases, can cause death.
• While these stress management techniques have been shown to have a positive effect on reducing stress, they are for guidance only, and readers should take the advice of suitably qualified health professionals if they have any concerns over stress-related illnesses or if stress is causing significant or persistent unhappiness.
• Health professionals should also be consulted before any major change in diet or levels of exercise.