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How Stress Affects Health

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Submitted By MariaJim
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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 is the complete opposite of short-term stress because this is something that may last years. For instance, an adult who as a child witnessed an event and has not been able to overcome it, such as, witnessing a loved one passing, being a victim of molestation, or a victim of abuse. There is also work related stress I believe is self-explanatory; it is stress that is caused in your work environment. This type of stress could be with customers you encounter, your co-workers, or the wok load given to you, or a mix of all. One other type of stress is also caused by major life events and daily tasks. For example, a major life event could be moving to another state or country leaving everyone you know behind and the stress of starting over in a new environment. An example of daily stressors is possibly the stress of traffic on your way to work or school.
Stress affects you behavior emotionally, mentally, and behavioral by experiencing a variety of feelings such as, anger, anxiety, depression, frustration, overwhelmed and fear. An emotional effect can be felt by anxiety is form of feeling nervous, tension or uncertain of an event and depression is the feeling of being sad, but long periods of time. A behavioral effect can be eating less, isolating yourself from others, feeling agitated, or using substances. Stress can lead a person to become an alcoholic, drug addict or a smoker. Stress also causes congenital issues such as poor judgment of things, memory loss, and lack of concentration. A mental disorder that known to be affected by stress is posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). According to Bruijn, Serman & Bailey (2014), this is a psychological disorder that is caused by a traumatic event. An example is those individuals who struggle from this are military combats, people who have been in horrific accidents, people who have gone through natural disasters, or people who have been raped.
Thus, as we become older stress definitely takes a toll on us physically. In 2011, the leading causes of death in America were heart diseases (Hoyert & Xu, 2012). Heart disease could be multiple cardiovascular illnesses that affect the heart as well as the blood vessels system. There are many kinds of heart disease such as, Coronary artery disease, strokes, hypertension, chest pain, and rheumatic heart disease. One of the major causes of heart illness is stress, according to Bjorklund (2015). The higher numbers of stressful event happen in your life the higher the risk is to develop some sort of heart illness. Diabetes is also a major cause by stress. According to EBSCO CAM Review Board (2012), diabetes is when insulin is not being secreted by the pancreas because the cells have been destroyed and the blood levels of insulin decrease to about zero. And, if patients with diabetes do not take care of themselves it can lead to blindness or even death. Another effect of stress is cancer, which may be caused by different life event such as, divorce, death, illness, or job related. For instance, stress is related to the increase of numbers of breast cancer in women. Tang, Kwong, Tam, Cheung, Ngan, Xia, and Wong state (2014), stress has a deep impact on developing malignant cells; in other words, the development of cancer, thus breast cancer for women. According to Greene (2008), insomnia is also a physical effect of stress; accelerating the process of aging. Insomnia is the lack of sleep or the inability to stay asleep during the night. When stress hormones are elevated it causes damage as we age causing to lose bone density and muscle (Greene, 2008).
Lastly, for those with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), stress may accelerate the progress of the disease. AIDS is the last stage of HIV, which is a virus that takes over ones body, attacking the immune system. This disease is usually transmitted through sex through semen or vaginal fluid, sharing needles where infected blood is transmitted, and through breast milk. There was study called “Progression to AIDS: Effect of stress, depressive symptoms, and social support,” where for five years a group of eighty-two gay HIV infected men were followed for five and a half years. According to Leserman, Jackson, Petitto, Golden, Silva, Perkins & Evans (1999), the study consist of the gu
As time goes by and we age stress starts to decrease because we have less to be concerned about and we learn the tricks and skills to cope with stress; however, it may be too late. When we get older there is less that will stress but the damage of stress has already been done. Throughout our life we go through different types of stress whether it is daily stressors, work stress, or major life event stress; we do not see how it harms us until we age. The elderly population has already gone through stress therefore; when they are elder they suffer from the affects of it. Stress is serious issue that if it is not known how to control or manage, it can lead to developed physical disease, mental issues, cognitive issues, and behavioral issues because of stress. I recommend young adults to attempt to be as stressful free as possible because it will take a toll on your body and it will not be noticeable until it is too late.

References
Bjorklund B.R., (2015) The Journey of Adulthood. New Jersey: Peasron Prentice Hall.
EBSCO CAM Review Board. (2012). Diabetes. Complementary & Alternative Medicine. Ipswich, MA: Salem Press.
Greene, G. (2008). Insomniac. California: The Regents of the University of California. Hoyert, D.L. & Xu, J. (2012, October 12). Deaths: Preliminary Data 2011. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_06.pdf
Kiev, A. (1974). A Strategy for Handling Executive Stress. Illinois: Nelson-Hall Company.
Lenz, S., Bruijn, B., Serman, N. S., & Bailey, L. (2014). Effectiveness of cognitive processing therapy for treating posttraumatic stress disorder. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 36(4), 360-376.
Leserman, J., Jackson, E. D., Petitto, J. M., Golden, R. N., Silva, S. G., Perkins, D. O., Evans, D. L. (1999). Progression to AIDS: The effects of stress, depressive symptoms, and social support. Psychosomatic Medicine, 61(3), 397-406. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxylocal.library.nova.edu/docview/69820326?accountid=6579
Reinhold, B.B. (1996). Toxic Work. New York: Dutton Penguin Group.
Tang, M. K. S., Kwong, A., Tam, K., Cheung, A. N. Y., Ngan, H. Y. S., Xia, W., & Wong, A. S. T. (2014). BRCA1 deficiency induces protective autophagy to mitigate stress and provides a mechanism for BRCA1 haploinsufficiency in tumorigenesis. Cancer Letters, 346(1), 139-147. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.canlet.2013.12.026

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