Stress is an organism's response to a stressor. Stressor means anything which is capable of producing stress. It is a feeling that people have when they are overloaded. As we all knows that, day to day busy life will always create some type of stress. Actually, people are struggling to cope up with the demands of day to day life. These demands can be anything such as finances, work or personal.
Actually, stress is an essential thing in our life. It sometimes acts as a motivator, it will motivate us to overcome or prepare us to face some situation. When we perceive some danger our body will flush many hormones to confront the danger. The body calls upon all the resources available for help in the dangerous situation. The chemicals mainly flushed during this time are cortisol, adrenalin and noradrenalin. These chemicals prepare the body for facing the danger by making some changes such as increased heart rate, heightened muscle tones, sweating, etc. This will help us to improve the quality of response to dangerous situations.
Stress is always helpful to make our body prepare for danger situation. The symptoms caused by the stress can be either physical or psychological. Physical in the sense means increased blood pressure, pulse, breathing and slow digestive function, etc. Psychological means increased alertness, emptiness etc. It can be short term and long term. Short term means that you will feel the stress for a shorter period. For example, Just think that, your result had came and you got less marks in the exam. You will become stressed or feared that ‘what will be the reaction of your parents’?. This is a short term stress. After a short or limited period, it will end up and you can continue a normal life, which is enjoyable one. It is always healthy to have some short term stresses. It will actually help you to keep your life in a progressive mode. But in case of long term stress, such as; if you are doing a job which is not your passion or you cannot enjoy it in any way, then you will face this long term stress. This will make your life put in the darkest corners of the world and make you feel low self esteem, helpless, hopeless etc.
Other than these two types, three more stress type is also there
- Acute stress
- Episodic acute stress
- Chronic stress
Acute stress:
-It is the most common type of stress. It is somewhat similar to short term stress. In this the individual will be stressed either by thinking about the difficult situation recently occurred or he will anticipate upcoming difficult events in the future. Both of these events will make the person to travel through some sort of stressful experiences. Acute stress will result intention headaches, distress and stomach upset. If the acute stress will increase in its frequency of occurrence than it will become harmful.
Episodic acute stress:
- When the frequency of acute stress increases, the person will become the victim of episodic acute stress. Mostly it is found in persons who have too much commitment in their life. The person will not be capable of handling his responsibility due to less organization power. The person with EAS will usually exhibit irritability, tensed behavior and these problems will usually affect family relationships. The end result of such type of stress will be heart disease or any other health problems.
Chronic stress
: - This is the most harmful type among the three. It runs for a long period of time. The causes of these types of stresses are many such as poverty, dysfunctional family or an unhappy marriage life. In this the person will feel that he is in a trap and cannot find ways to escape. He even stops seeking solutions. After that it continues to exist without making any symptoms to notice. It will work as a silent killer. People become used to it and he feels that it is normal. Even it will become a part of their personality. The final result of this type of stress is always horrible. It can lead to suicide, violence, heart attacks and strokes.
If you want to overcome these stress you should maintain some sort of personal power. Personal power doesn’t mean, that's how strong we are physically, but it is the power we have, to take good or wise decisions, wise choices and managing several factors which will otherwise become harmful to our life. That is it means a 100% control on yourself. But it is not easy. It should be learned. Managing self means using our physical body at its fullest for productive use only. Managing stress will become only a part in it. But it can do more than that. If we cannot control it. It will take full control over us and can make you feel like hell. So personal power is an important thing in controlling your stress.
