...How Stress Affects Our Health November 25, 2015 How Stress Affects Our Health In life there is not one human being who has not felt the anxiety or heart pounding feeling of being stressed. I believe this is a silent disease that slowly takes over one’s life one way or another. According to Kiev (1974), from a medical standpoint stress is just a nervous tension because life is being lived too quickly; therefore, the energy is being wasted. Stress can wear an individual out and cause heath issues once entering adulthood. Feeling stressed is so common in everyday life that it has become a way of life. When individuals are under stress they tend to panic, not realizing the toll it is taking on their body and mind. Stress starts to affect the body by prolonging the levels of fat, causing the immune system to diminish and leaving the body weak and vulnerable to infections (Reinhold, 1996). There are several types of stresses that can affect you and cause cognitive issues, emotional issues, mental issues, and physical issues. A type of stress that many come across several times in their life is short-term stress. Probably the most common type of stress that there is. This type of stress that last for a small amount of time, hens the name short-term stress. An example of short-term stress is when there is a deadline on an assignment in school or work. It is something that once you have completed and turned in on the deadline all stress is completely gone. Chronic life stress...
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...The example of stress I would like to give is care giver stress. Care Giver Stress Homeostasis – the tendancy of biological systems to maintain relatively constant conditions in the internal environment while continuously interacting with and adjusting to changes originating within or outside the system. (medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/homeostasis.) The composition of the internal environment is maintained within narrow limits, and this fairly constant state is called homeostasis. Literally, this term means 'unchanging', but in practice it describes a dynamic, ever-changing situation kept within narrow limits. When this balance is threatened or lost, there is a serious risk to the well-being of the individual. There are many factors in the internal environment which must be maintained within narrowlimits and some of these are listed in Box 1.1.Homeostasis is maintained by control systems which detect and respond to changes in the internal environment. A control system (Fig. 1.3) has three basic components: detector, control centre and effector. The control centre determines the limits within which the variablefactor should be maintained. It receives an input from thedetector or sensor, and integrates the incoming information. When the incoming signal indicatesthat an adjustment is needed the control centre responds and its outpu to the effector is changed. This is a dynamic process that maintains homeostasis. (Ross and Wilson) page 5Adrenaline and noradrenaline ...
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...Running head: OCCUPATIONAL STRESS AFFECTS MENTAL HEALTH How occupational stress affects mental health Dayana Fornaris Florida National College April 15, 2011 Abstract This research paper gives us a brief idea about how occupational stress affects mental health. It describes how occupational stress has become a serious health issue, not just in terms of an individual’s mental and physical well being, but also for employers as well who had begin to feel the financial consequences of work stress. Occupational stress can be defined as the harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when the requirements of the job do not match the capabilities of the worker. However, occupational stress can be an extremely difficult construct to define. There are certain factors that contribute to work stress like for example working long hours beyond your control; Finding it hard to say no to a task for fear of losing future work, frustration and feeling undervalued at work. This can lead to stress and tension. How occupational stress affects mental health Stress has been defined in a number of ways and the range of stress management techniques is even wider still. Essentially what most people understand by 'stress' is a physiological or psychological response to external stressors that goes beyond what is accepted as normal. Maybe 'strain' would have been a better word. Limited external stresses produce a response, a 'strain’, which...
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...Stress is a huge factor in many people's lives as we face day to day activities and things that go wrong. How we handle them is essential for our health and well-being. We all face stress, sometimes more than others, but it is how we handle the stress when it happens is how it will affect us internally and externally. The large life stress factors that really affect us is losing our job or losing a loved one, or even the worrying of losing your house and everything you own from losing your job. When the day to day small activities like being stuck in a traffic jam, or taking on someone else's problem as our own, are things that we can avoid the stress levels that will hurt us not only mentally exhaust us, but also internally tearing down our body. Have you ever seen people in high stressed jobs, like trading, they are always sick and the turnover is high; the reason being is they eventually burn themselves out on all the stress. The reason they are always sick is that the stress is affecting our lymphocytes which protect us from getting sick. Stress also affects the way our bodies disperse cortisol, our fat and also our moods and how we react. Being overly stressed will also take a toll on the way you sleep...
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...detect and handle your stress level My self-assessment tells me about my level of stress that I will have a high risk of becoming ill in the near future. I’m not surprised about my stress level but is surprised about becoming ill in the near future. Not sure if this is something I would want to know what’s in my near future. This kind of information can be stressful itself in knowing what you may be facing due to my stress level. However, it is useful to know about this so that I can take action now to prevent any illness pertaining to my health. Seeing friends and old classmates losing their life to unaware illness is a wake-up call for me. Stress can cause sever health problems and some cases, can cause death. I have no choice but to take this advice regarding my concerns over stress-related illnesses that may occur. Currently, my stress has been causing me significant unhappiness. After reviewing the article discovered by the American Psychological Association how stress affects the body. This article emphasize the musculoskeletal system and how the muscles tense up due to your stress level. Explaining how chronic stress can cause the muscles in your body to be a constant state of guardedness. And dealing with chronic stress seems to also cause many types of headaches including tension in your shoulders and the neck. I never knew millions of people suffers from this type of stress-related pain that affects the body. Not knowingly how it can also affect your breathing especially...
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...So, what can actually affect the health of a type D personality person? Can this be changed over short or long a period of time? Where does the type D personality affect people in their life? So let's jump into the topic that I have chosen and figure out some answers to all the questions I have for the type D personalities. Type D (distressed) personality is a diagnosis of a person that has an issue or many issues with both social anxiety disorder and general anxiety disorder. A social anxiety disorder is when you have a fear or phobia of being watched, judged, or criticized by people around them. General anxiety disorder is much more than just a “normal” anxiety disorder that people experience day to day, it is extensive and over exaggerated...
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...Psychology Stress And Health Stress and Health Psychology Andrew Arnold March 25, 2010 Ever wonder about how stress affects our bodies and our health? This word stress is thrown around by the media so much it’s losing its meaning but have you ever wondered how they define stress? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines stress as a physical, chemical, or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension and may be a factor in disease causation. Our text book defines stress as the term used to describe the physical, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses to events that are appraised as threatening or challenging. Stress-causing events are called stressors, they can come from external sources or from within us and can scale from relatively mild to quite serious. There are things, events, and conflicts that cause people to “stress-out.” These are called stressors. Stressors can be anything from something small, like being stuck in traffic during rush hour or something big like an earthquake or hurricane. Stressors can also be imaginary, such as financial stress such as, where the next mortgage payment will come from. There are two kinds of stressors, one is distress which is the bad stress and eustress which is the good stress that motivates us as people to do well. There are certain environmental factors that can affect our stress levels and sometimes we cannot control the outcome of these events, these are basic ups and downs of life. An example...
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...The Impact of Stress on Jobs and the Workplace Prepared for: Mr. Glenn Pace Webster University Truman Education Center ------------------------------------------------- Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri ------------------------------------------------- Prepared By: Mrs. Betty Downing 5 March 2012 Introduction: There is an overwhelming concern in today’s society about stress on the job and in the workplace and how that will carry over to a person’s home life. Stress has taken an immense toll on the physical and emotional health of individuals, as well as the bottom lines of organizations (Greenhaus, Callanan, Godshalk, 2010). Stress can be the number one problem for working individuals, many of whom are trying to juggle everything at one time such as home, caring for children or aging family members, and work. The human brain has an inherit response for perceived attacks, harm or threats to ourselves that is known as the “fight or flight” response. With constant stress situations at work an individual will make a decision to either fight or flee the environment. There is no getting around it stress is going to be in the workplace but the issue is determining if the stressor is a positive or negative factor for employees is the matter to be dealt with. Afterwards people need to learn how to manage the stress therefore maximizing their job performance while also being able to preserve both their mental and physical health. What organizations need to start...
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...defines stress as an applied force or systems of forces which tend to strain an individual body in such a way that the particular individual experiences the feeling of ‘not being in control’. From the psychology point of view, stress can also be considered as a reaction to a stimulus that disturbs an individual’s physical or mental equilibrium (Psychology Today, 2014). Given that numerous stressful events are capable of triggering different responses in human beings, it is fair to say that stress is an event that is omnipresent in every part of life; and hence is worth exploring. Significant investigations and debates into the issues of stress, its determinants and who are generally susceptible to stress have been rife in recent decades (Langan-fox and Cooper, 2011). The general consensus is that frequent exposure to traumatic events is the vital stressor for stress and everyone is susceptible to traumatic events and stress (Langan-fox and Cooper, 2011). Externalisation of stressful behaviours as a result of being exposed to traumatic events such as severe neglect, abuse and repeated violence is clinically termed as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) (Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2013). It has been maintained that PTSD creates psychological and physical imbalances in sufferers; and affects their physical and mental well-being negatively (Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2013). From this standpoint, it can be argued that PSTD equally has the potential to affect the well-beings...
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...Conclusion chart What the reference says | How it relates to my research question | Reference: “Women working in Male-Dominated Jobs Experience Higher Levels of Stress and Health Problems” By, Kristin Magaldi | ~ This reference relates by giving an example of a situation which occurs in most places. Showing why women stress and under what circumstance, leading to how they feel and turn out in the future. | Evidence: Women working among men are mainly subjected to more challenges. If these stress levels continue, researchers found that women will experience dysregulation in their stress response and creating future diseases and increased risk of mortality. | | Reference: “Chronic Stress Puts Your Health at Risk” by, Mayo clinic staff | ~ This reference not only says why a person stresses, but also what is happening inside them physically. After seeing that a person stresses for a long period of time, it tells us the potential health risk which most probably occur | Evidence: Inside the human body, stress increases adrenaline which increases your heart rate, elevates blood pressure, and boosts energy supplies. Cortisol increases sugar in your brain and increases the availability of substance that repair tissue. | | Reference: “Facts on Stress” by, National Institute of Mental Health” | ~ This shows the different types of stress and how severe it can get when activated for a long period of time. ~ It also shows examples of how this person gets stressed, over which...
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...November 2015 The Effects That Stress Has On Health Stress is a word that constantly gets tossed around with different meanings and connotations. Many people do not realize what a significant effect that it can have on people and their families. Merriam-Webster defines stress as a state of mental tension and worry caused by problems in your life, work, etc. The denotation of stress can also be stated as something that causes strong feelings of worry or anxiety. In a medical or biological context, stress is a physical, mental, or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension (medicinenet.com). It does not just interfere with your daily life; it causes many health problems. Stress can be as acute or as minute as the patient allows it to be but despite the assumptions, stress is a terrible disease that can affect the health of many including altered brain function, internal organ issues, and mental instability. There are many different causes of stress depending on the type of person the patient may be. Money, the economy, work, relationships, and responsibilities are all recorded factors known to cause stress. Stress can be caused by a deadline you have to meet at work or even the concern of pleasing your spouses or relatives. Workplace stress can affect your ability to apply and keep jobs or appease your boss. According to a survey from the American Psychological Association, more than one third of American workers experience chronic work stress (helpguide.org). School can...
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...This assignment is based upon stress, the bio-psychosocial approach on how stress can affect health, well-being and the maintenance of homeostasis. There are many definitions of stress but the majority of definitions put emphasis on the relationship between the individual and the environment. This is called the bio-psychosocial approach. When treating patients the Practitioner should take a more holistic approach when determining the type of treatment that is required, this would include taking into account the patients lifestyle, environment and social support. The World Health Organisation states that ‘Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’. (WHO 1948). Stress can be defined as any type of change that causes physical, emotional or psychological strain. However, there are many types of stress and not all types of stress are harmful or negative. One theory is that stress is the result of a persons appraisal process. The assessment of whether personal resources are sufficient to meet the demands of the environment. Stress has been identified as being the individuals ability to adapt to the environment (Lazarus and Folkman 1984; Lazarus and Launer 1978; Pervin 1989). There are two types of stress response which Lazarus (1966) made a distinction between, these are psychological and physiological stress. Lazarus stated that physiological stress is a response to a physical damage already incurred...
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...What Effect Does Early Trauma Have On the Brain? Traumatic stress is a common problem in children and adults. Studying traumatic stress can help psychologists understand how to better treat trauma victims. When a typical person experiences a trauma, he needs to learn how to manage his stress. Injury, including one-time or more repetitive symptoms, affects everyone differently. How an event affects an individual depends on many factors, including characteristics of the individual, the type and characteristics of the events, developmental processes, the meaning of the trauma, and sociocultural factors. The reason that I picked The Article “Trauma Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services,” is because it discusses how self-inflicted injuries are common for trauma victims and how they react to abnormal circumstances. Traumatic experiences affect the brain therefore...
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...Stress, Mental Health and Spirituality There is no specific definition for mental health, but it is like physical health, not just the absence of illness but also the presence of many positive characteristics, from our text book “your health today” (40). Scientists believe that metal health can somehow affect our thinking, feeling and acting, and it is important to our life because it lasts from our childhood to our adulthood. There are emotional, psychological, cognitive, interpersonal, or spiritual aspects of an individual’s whole life. Therefore, it is a common problem for every shingle person, and everyone has to face it because we have our own issues that probably bring us stress. As I can find, there are at least eleven kinds of characteristics of mentally healthy people. The first one, they have really high self-esteem, which I understand it as they are arrogant. Those people feel good about everything about themselves. The second one, they are realistic and practical. They accept failure in themselves and others. The third one, they are altruist; they are willing to help others. The fourth one, they have sense of control over things, and they can easily deal with problems. The fifth one, they demonstrate social skills in their relationships with others. They think people are reliable and they believe they can trust and rely on them. The sixth one, they are not afraid of fear, love or anger; they are good at trying to control unreasonable thoughts and levels of...
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...Problems of Stress and Burnout for Employees and Employers Introduction Work-related stress and burnout turn into a more widespread problem in the American workforce. Both employees and employers face problems when dealing with this issue. Our book defines burnout as a special type of job stress; a state of physical, emotional or mental exhaustion combined with doubts about your competence and the value of your work (Dressler, 2011). Stress is much more then just a specific situation though. Stress basically is a responsive reaction of an individual to a particular situation. This is why stress is usually difficult to cope with because every person reacts differently to a certain situation. Overwork, job insecurity, and other numerous factors have a negative effect on a person. Distress is produced, and an employee physiologically and psychologically deviates in her or his experiences in comparison to healthy functioning (Sandon, 2006). Stress and burnout are some unnecessary pressures at work can not only be detrimental to the well being of an employee but also affect the company in negative way. Causes of Stress and Burnout in the Workplace While mild stress can be beneficial to a person, providing stimulus and challenge. Stress becomes health threatening only when individuals feel unable to cope with demands expected from them. There is a clear difference between stress and burnout. Stress causes lots of anxiety and stirs up many emotions, while those suffering from...
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