Defining The Stress Response Across Scientific Disciplines

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Environmental Stress
Stress Perception by Richard Lazarus’s Appraisal
Holmes and Rahe Self-Evaluation
The Fight or Flight Response to Stress
Differences Between Acute, Chronic, and Distant Stresses
Tools for Coping with Stress
Stress and Obesity
Relationships Between Stress and Depression

Introduction

The stress response across multiple scientific disciplines contributes to primary and secondary appraisals of anger, fear, guilt, sadness, and anxiety.

The works of Lazarus and Folman (1979) best capture the transaction definition of stress when they say transaction definitions define the interaction between people and their environments. Usually, stress occurs when people are unable to cope with their environments (Contrada, 2011).

Different types of stress may affect different types of people. For example, depressed and non-depressed people are susceptible to different types of stress, including psychological stress, environmental stressors, and biological stressors.

Most of these stress factors have a significant impact on the mental and physical well-being of their patients. For example, emotional stress has a significant impact on the mental and physical health of those affected.

Environmental Stress

Environmental stress differs from emotional stress because it mainly concerns four issues that relate to post-traumatic stress disorder.

The first issue consists of biological, psychological, and environmental issues that affect post-traumatic stress.

The second issue encompasses the imbalance between demands and the capacity of patients to handle and manage stress.

The third issue consolidates the differing results of the imbalance between demands and capacity to manage stress. The imbalance may result in death or even disease.

The last issue is the process involved in arriving at the above steps (Contrada, 2011).

Stress Perception by Richard Lazarus’s Appraisal

Lazarus (2011) explains that our negative or positive perceptions of stress mainly depend on the ability of our body’s perception of stress factors. This analysis greatly resonates with my perceptions of stress.

For instance, the death of my brother-in-law was stressful for me because I had no prior perception of such a loss. Its effect on me manifested through a strong mental numbness, although I was physically present in such circumstances.

The support that I received from other family members, however, helped to relieve my agony because I felt that they were empathetic to me. Moreover, the thought that my brother-in-law could no longer feel the pain he had been going through was also somewhat comforting.

Holmes and Rahe Self-Evaluation

The basis for the performance of the Holmes and Rahe self-evaluation process is to analyze every stage of stress management, as it affects both depressed and non-depressed people.

For example, Holmes and Rahe’s self-evaluation framework analyzes several psychological factors such as the psychological, environmental, and biological factors that affect a person’s stress level. Some of the common outcomes that arise from such evaluations include depression and anxiety.

To capture the varying levels of stress among different patients, Holmes and Rahe use percentages to explain the different degrees of a person’s stress level.

They normally use normative weights to compare the findings of the evaluation. The test scores provide an indication of a person’s ability to adapt to stressful situations.

The Fight or Flight Response to Stress

Contrada (2011) says proper stress management is important in preventing the detrimental effects of stress. The failure to manage stress properly may lead to several outcomes. However, the two most common outcomes are fighting and fleeing.

Researchers refer to these outcomes as “fight and flight” responses. Therefore, the lack of proper stress management may lead to physical harm (fight response) (Contrada, 2011).

The lack of proper stress management may also lead to the emergence of diseases because stress always suppresses people’s immune systems, thereby predisposing them to diseases. This situation may also lead to long-term immune system disorders.

Perception of Stress May Result in a Fight or Flight Response

Personality has a huge role to play in the way most people perceive stress and manage it. Depending on a person’s personality, one may respond either inappropriately or appropriate to a stressful situation.

Usually, people with “hardened” personalities respond inappropriately to stressful situations. Here, such people may exhibit anti-social behaviors and frustration (Plotnik, 2002).

A person’s perception of life (attitude) also dictates how they manage stress, or if they adopt a fight or flight response (Plotnik, 2002).

For instance, people who exhibit a lot of pessimism often have a negative reaction to the fight or flight responses. Conversely, optimistic people have a positive reaction to stress management.

Stress Reduction Technique

People who have a high predisposition to stress are normally exposed to several health threats and high health costs (Wolever, 2012). Doctors may use different methods to help people who suffer from a high predisposition to stress.

One such method is therapeutic yoga. Another intervention could be mindfulness-based interventions. Doctors may use these techniques to evaluate a patient’s blood pressure, heartbeat rate, breathing rate, and other factors that affect their health and well-being.

Relative to these tests, researchers have used a randomized clinical trial (RCT) to test the efficiency of therapeutic yoga and mindfulness-based interventions. The study involved stressed and non-stressed participants.

The study established that about 40% of sad students exhibited more stress than respondents who were not sad (Li, Wang, Lin, & Lee, 2011). These findings proved to have high efficacy, thereby confirming the reliability of the tests

Differences Between Acute, Chronic, and Distant Stresses

Acute Stress

Acute, chronic, and distant stresses have different effects on people. Some of the effects of acute stress disorders include cardiovascular diseases, depression, anxiety, and neuroticism. Acute stress also increases the vulnerability of patients to mental and physical diseases (Contrada, 2011).

For example, a person who has a type ‘A’ personality has a high likelihood of experiencing fatigue and burnout. Acute stress also manipulates the emotional stability of affected victims, thereby causing abnormal behaviors in them.

Chronic Stress

Five major categories affect a person’s immune system. They include basic emotions, social threat, global mood states, cognitive appraisals, and worry.

Chronic stress usually has a very diverse set of impact as it affects a person’s cognitive appraisal system, social status, and their vulnerability to cardiovascular diseases.

Chronic stress, therefore, has a high likelihood of increasing a person’s psychopathologies and mental illnesses (Contrada, 2011).

This situation may occur through the impairment of lipopolysaccharide binding proteins (LBP) and the hippocampus memory. The impairment may project worse outcomes when the neurodevelopment process is ongoing (Contrada, 2011).

Distant Stress

Distant stress also affects a person’s immune system, except for the fact that its effects are minimal. Like acute stress, distant stress may affect a person’s immune system as it influences a person’s hypothalamus, pituitary, and adrenal glands to produce undesirable health outcomes.

The undesirable health outcomes may occur through the initiation of the corticotropin and ceruleus norepinephrine systems (Wiener, 2011).

Relative to the assertion that distant stress may affect a person’s immune system, Segerstrom and Miller (2006) found that distant stress affects the body’s breakdown of cellular and hormonal responses thereby affecting, negatively, the body’s ability to fight pathogens.

Through these findings, the researchers agreed that a person’s ability to manage stress was an important factor in the determination of their ability to fight diseases (Segerstrom and Miller, 2006).

Effects of Types of Stresses on the Immune System

Through the discharge of cortisol, Cont (2011) explains that acute stress may cause serious psychological stress. The discharge of cortisol is often useful in determining a person’s stress level, before and after the occurrence of acute stress.

It is also similarly easy to measure the effects of chronic stress on the immune system because its effects on the cardiovascular system, neuroendocrine system, and the metabolic systems are measurable.

The focus of distant stress on the immune system manifests through its influence on the mental and physical health of the patients (Contrada, 2011).

The effect of distant stress on the immune system stems from its influence on cognitive prototypes. This effect may manifest when patients ignore the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorders, thereby “destroying” their immune systems (Contrada, 2011).

Examples of Particular Risks for Stresses

Different populations are often vulnerable to different types of stress. For example, APA (2013) posits that most people who share type ‘A’ personalities are always susceptible to acute stress.

Such persons may include people who have a high temper, high achievement record, and a strong drive to rush things.

Comparatively, people who are susceptible to chronic stress disorders are often unemployed, financially unsound, and suffering from some form of life diminishing disease, like diabetes.

Lastly, the profile of people who are susceptible to distant stress fit the profile of abused children, war victims, abused mothers and such types of people who have undergone some life-changing event (Segerstrom and Miller, 2006).

Tools for Coping with Stress

There are different types of tools that are useful for coping with stress. These tools normally subdivide into two groups: emotion-focused tools and problem-focused coping mechanisms.

The emotion-focused approach normally forms an outline to identify the negative emotions that cause stress. This tool also doubles as the maladaptive tool, although it differs from the problem-focused approach of treating stress.

Problem-focused treatment methods are normally self-efficient. As the name suggests, the problem-focused approach mainly emphasizes on solving the problems that cause stress in the first place.

The elimination of such problems therefore emerges as the solution for solving stressful situations (Grant, 2012).

Psychologists mainly use the problem-focused strategy to coach students to adapt to specific stressful situations. Its use has applied in different contexts, including some work problems that I had experienced in my previous job.

Many people praise the problem-focused approach because it helps them to plan and set goals that they can use as stress-relieving tools (McLeod, 2010).

However, the main weakness of this approach is its high failure rate when psychologists use it on subjects who have low self-esteem, or when the subjects deny the existence of the problem in the first place.

The subjects may be greatly discouraged when the treatment method is unsuccessful (McLeod, 2010).

Efficacy of a Coping Mechanism to Reduce Stress

The efficacy of a coping mechanism to reduce stress usually depends on the environment of its application. Occasionally, the environment suppresses the efficacy of the coping mechanism.

However, after comparing the efficacy of the emotion-based coping strategy and the problem-based strategy, we can affirm a higher level of efficacy for the emotion-based strategy. The weakness of the problem-based mechanism is its high failure rate in treating high levels of stress.

Two Other Coping Mechanisms in Reducing Stress

Besides the emotion-based method and the problem-based mechanism, biology-based methods may also relieve stress. Another stress-relieving method that has almost similar efficacy levels as the above-mentioned treatment methods are the breathing and mediation strategies.

Nonetheless, when we focus on the biology-based method, we see that participating in physical exercise is one biological way of coping with stress. For example, to relieve the mind and body stress, individuals run, hike, or play tennis.

Biology-focused methods reduce stress because they are helpful in relaxing an individual’s mind and body. Various other coping techniques also relax and manage stress. For example, coping mechanisms for anxiety and panic disorders ease through breathing strategies and mediation.

Stress and Obesity

Scientific researches on the nature of stress disorders have shown the existence of the relationship between biology, psychology, and physiology (Contrada, 2011). Most of these scientific studies have also shown a clear relationship between stress and socioeconomic status.

Some researchers have used these factors to explain the risk of obesity (Contrada, 2011). Therefore, I have decided to analyze and understand the effect of stress and obesity on both genders (men and women). Obesity has taken a toll on the American public.

Recent studies show that about 30% of the American public may be obese (May & Buckman, 2007). Notably, to assess if one is obese, or not, medics have used the body mass index (BMI) measure to ascertain the health of their patients.

Physicians define people who have a body mass index of 30 or below as overweight people, while they classify those that have a BMI of 35 or above as obese (May & Buckman, 2007).

Population That Is Most Susceptible to Obesity

People who hail from the lower classes are usually more susceptible to obesity than any other group in America. This dynamic exists because people who come from low classes normally do not have full access to health resources as wealthy people do.

Moreover, most of these people do not have a proper home and therefore feed on many “junk” foods. This situation worsens through the fact that many single mothers who hail from a lower social class equally feed “junk” foods to their children.

Consequently, from the poor eating habits of this group of people, low-class people are highly susceptible to obesity. However, this analogy does not mean that wealthy people are not obese.

Their improved access to health resources, however, minimizes their vulnerability to obesity. For example, they have good access to grocery shops where they can buy healthy foods. Similarly, they have good access to health fitness equipment and instructors in gyms.

Stress and Coping Differ Between Populations

Since finances seem to be a big problem in America, lower class families are more vulnerable to stress. Indeed, their inability to meet their financial obligation increases their stress levels (Chandola & Marmot, 2011).

Therefore, there is a common tendency for stress to overlap in many aspects of their lives. For example, poor working conditions may be stressful for people who hail from a lower class because they also cause low pay.

Consequently, the financial well-being of a person has an effect on their health because it determines their choice of food and eating habits.

Since there is already a strong link between obesity and low socioeconomic status, it is correct to say that obese people have a higher likelihood of being stressed (Chandola & Marmot, 2011).

Medics may prove this fact because they say stress leads to the production of glucocorticoids, which further causes the production of intra-abdominal fats thereby leading to obesity (Anda et al., 2006).

Relationships Between Stress and Depression

Albeit it is difficult to measure stress mechanically, many researchers understand the etiology of stress (Laureate Education Inc, 2013). These researchers also understand the physiological forces and biochemical processes that explain stress (NIMH, 2012).

For example, a mental image of the impact of stress on a person’s brain manifests through the work of Pinel (2009, p. 231-354) which shows how stress affects the brain. Through the same studies, scientific research equally shows how anxiety and depression disorders affect the brain.

Stress Response That Influences the Development of Depression

Davila and Moyer (2008) say that stress causes severe depression. This process starts with the production of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH).

The production of ACTH causes the production of glucocorticoids, which causes several stress responses including anxiety and depression.

As noted in earlier sections of this paper, the severity of depression depends on personalities and coping strategies. According to APA (2005), these symptoms may manifest through loneliness and social exclusion.

Influence of Depression on the Immune and Inflammatory Response Systems

The causes of stress are many and vary widely. Pinel (2005) says simple normal procedures like working out, sports or even participating in exams may cause significant stress for the people affected. The stress may equally manifest through an increase in blood pressure.

The presence of blood pressure normally engages autonomic nervous systems, which may occur through the increase or decrease in the size of the blood vessels. When such an event occurs, the brain usually releases cytokines, which control the level of blood pressure in the body.

Here, the brain always assumes that the body is under attack and it releases excessive amounts of cytokines to control the blood pressure.

The excessive production of cytokine binds to cellular receptors, which may equally affect the strength of the body’s immune system or the strength of the body in controlling a viral attack.

Such an eventuality may lead to the development of several diseases including rheumatoid arthritis or the occurrence of harmful pathogens in the body.

Comprehensively from this relationship, it is safe to say stress has a strong correlation with the immune system, depression, and inflammatory responses.

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