What is Stress?

What is stress?

As we are all aware that stress has become part of our daily life, pressure in day to day job, family issues, promotion, financial issues and many more things get added and contribute to stress symptoms in human. So what is stress exactly? It is basically the situations that triggers stress and the way we respond to those situations leads to stress. It can be healthy or non-healthy and it can be caused due to anything like cold, heat or any environmental change, it can also be due to tension or happiness. In general tension or happiness relates to the emotional state of mind that can force many biological changes in the body which can lead to stress. So this is what is stress in general.

Stress is a term that cannot be defined or measured as it gets triggered with the circumstances. When we are worried for things that are not in our control, though the mind knows very well that the particular thing is beyond our control still our heart is not ready to accept it. This conflict between heart and mind actually leads to stress. This kind of stress is called mental stress which needs to be managed and as mentioned above it happens because we force and pressurize ourselves to think about things that are not in our control. What important to note is when we are stressed out adrenaline is released from our adrenal gland. The primary function of this gland is to provide energy to the body in challenging situations, but it can also sometimes make the body anxious, stressed out and nervous. Consistent stress can lead to various disease like stroke, cancer, diabetes, kidney problems and many other issues.

As mentioned above stress cannot be defined, it possess different characteristics for different individuals.

The following illustration will help you understand what is stress more efficiently. When we are sitting on the roller coaster ride, some get excited and happy when it goes up and down, some get frightened and feel nauseous and they shut their eyes when it comes down and goes up and some are neutral. It shows that the influence of stress while sitting on the ride is different for each one of us. Each individual deals with it differently, while the ride is common for all but reactions are different. It proves that the internal reaction is totally different and unique for every individual while dealing with stress.

We all experience some degree of stress all the time. Stress can be good or bad it can get triggered due to disease, tension or even happiness. All this things are enough to trigger stress to some extent in the body. Stress is not necessarily always harmful, it’s due to stress we express our emotion, anger and various other feelings. In other words it is spice of life the only thing is it is different with different individuals.

While bad and negative stress can have severe effects on our body, at the same time positive stress can help us to meet challenges and face them efficiently. It is stress that keeps us on our toes while making important decisions of life. Kissing passionately while making love is positive stress at the same time getting scolding from boss is kind of negative stress, in both the situations the adrenaline releases the stress hormone the intensity also is the same, but the only difference is the response in both the situations. While kissing we are happy and relaxed so the stress is positive, while receiving scolding from boss our mind is anxious and frustrated so the stress is negative. Positive stress makes our life cheerful but beyond the comfort zone it can cause mental damage to our body and mind.

This is a general understanding of what is stress and we can protect our self by understanding the signs and symptoms of stress and taking necessary steps to reduce the harmful effects caused by stress. I have faced stress related problems and have suffered a lot that is why I have decent understanding of it. I will try to discuss about different types of stress in the next post. I hope you all found the post on what is stress useful, if you really liked it please comment and share.