Stress: Causes, Sources and Symptoms

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Introduction

Stress is a psychological concept it cannot be touched or perceived directly because it is the emotional and physical strain caused to us when we respond to some indirect pressure from the outer world (Stress, 2008a). Stress is usually caused due to some imbalance on the mental and physical conditions which varies from how person to person takes it. Stress makes a person unable to make decisions particularly when he is subjected to workload in operational settings where the stakes are high and data are ambiguous. Stress is doubled or tripled whenever there are time constraints like noise, workload, or threat which can play havoc with the clear thinking needed in work settings (Driskell & Salas, 1996, p. 49).

Stress is an intrinsic element of human biology, psychology, social relationships and organisational structures and is therefore a predictable consequence of being human and alive. In order to reflect on how we might wish to safeguard ourselves from the more deleterious effects of stress, it is first necessary to accommodate this fact psychologically and emotionally. However, not all stress results in a negative outcome. Stress that motivates us to push against the limits of our human experience or learning that we perceive as challenging rather than debilitating is called ‘eustress’. Eustress stimulates teachers to develop their professional competence and perform their roles more effectively.

Pressure and stress come from two main sources, from the outside world and from within oneself. Stress from the environment comes in the shape of unexpected life events, the strain of ongoing, unsatisfactory circumstances, and from daily hassles. Internal sources of stress are unconscious and self-imposed and can come from an ill-maintained, sensitive, or ailing body, from faulty learning, which results in problem behaviours and habits, and finally, from maladaptive patterns of thinking and erroneous beliefs about oneself or one’s world.

External risks on stress include ill health, problem behaviours, or faulty thinking that can exacerbate the impact of external events, ongoing life circumstances, or daily mishaps (Flanagan, 1990, p. 23). Personal causes of stress include accidents, psychological disorders due to some mishap, death of a family member or loved one, financial issues and so on.

Symptoms

The symptoms include tension, mental instability, and lack of concentration, depression, excessive workload, family problems, personal problems, and sometimes physical diseases.

Cognitive Symptoms: The cognitive side of stress includes memory problems, inability to take decisions, lack of confidence, viewing everything from the negative aspect, uncertainty, anxious thoughts and fearful anticipation.

Emotional Symptoms: the emotional drawbacks are loneliness, restlessness, being unhappy with the present situations and inability to take rest or relax.

Physical Symptoms: Physically in stress the person is subjected to over eating or eating disorder, headaches, migraine, nausea, diarrhoea, unnecessary weight loss or gain, insomnia, loss of sex drive, dependency on drugs and alcohol, and overdoing activities (Stress, 2008b). Stress, at work is a common phenomenon which refers to the state of “feeling ill” (Payne & Cozens, 1999, p. 3).

Psychological Effects of Stress

The effects of stress are not consistent with the psychological literature that is, when an organism deviates from biological equilibrium, a stress can be inferred, and if at least one stress can be inferred from the presence of such a strain, then the psychological literature should be replete with reports of the effects of various stresses on human performance and productivity. Stress acts as function that psychologically causes fuzziness with which the concepts of stress and strain are used in the psychological literature, and among behavioural and social scientists generally, than of any real lack of studies of forces, commonplace and otherwise, that are associated with deviations from biological or psychological equilibrium (Alluisi, 1982, p. 2).

Stress effects on Human Performance

Stress effects human performance and effectiveness and proves that worker productivity does indeed depend on many diverse, individualized factors probably too many to provide more than very general, diffuse, organization-wide applications. A worker’s performance depends upon factors like motivation and job satisfaction and stress effects those relevant task and situational variables, which are complex to the aptitude and skill, experience and training variables of worker. Since these variables and factors interact with each other, therefore stress when effects one, all other tasks and situational variables are changed so as to make the job more difficult, aptitude and skill or experience and training requirements can be raised to compensate.

The relationship between stress and depression

Stress when combined with the negative events results in depression which in the context of personality and social behaviour stresses the importance of individual differences in the likelihood of expressing and modulating different emotions. There are individuals who when reacted with stress produce mild stress or novelty which is one of approach towards positive emotions, whereas other individuals display withdrawal responses and negative emotions. Besides, individual differences within these groups in the intensity of emotion expression and in the ability to modulate expression are the differences that generate tendency to express either approach (positive) or withdrawal (negative) patterns in response to stress or novelty and are fundamental to the motivational core of individuals. The differences for which every individual reacts differently to stress are seen as being subsumed by different brain systems, with the tendency to express negative emotions and withdrawal organized and the tendency to express positive emotions and approach-related behaviours organized (Johnson et al, 2000, p. 38).

Stress behind infant crying

Bowlby noticed that among mammalian species, cry vocalizations form the core of the infant’s behavioural stress response. That means behind baby’s first cry stress functions to summon the caregiver and to motivate the caregiver to search for and change the conditions that threaten the infant’s homeostasis. Stress in infants is represented in the form of a cry that is more than just vocalization the state of crying and involves vocalizations, diffuse movements, facial grimaces, entrained breathing, and so on. Thus, it can be argued that the infant mammals’ behavioural stress consists of signal behaviours (crying/grimacing) and locomotors behaviours (movement, search) that increase the likelihood of contact between caregiver and young both by motivating behaviour that brings the caregiver to the infant and by increasing behaviours that bring the infant to the caregiver (Lewis & Ramsay, 1999, p. 41).

Stress during Childhood and Adolescence

Stress in the context of developmental psychopathology is the identification of factors that predict an increased probability for emotional and behavioural problems in children and adolescents. Although stress plays a significant role in disturbing social and biological factors in the life of a child and adolescent maladjustment, research indicating a consistent association between stressful events and psychological disorder in adults suggests that stress may be an important construct to investigate in younger populations. Stressful experiences occurring early in development may contribute to emotional or behavioural problems and disrupt positive development. Further, early events may alter the course of later development either directly or indirectly and may cause many psychological disorders. Stress, stressful events or stressful circumstances going on in children’s lives and maladjustment may be reciprocally related, each contributing to the maintenance of the other.

Among children stress is concerned with vulnerability which is due to a wide range of factors, like effects of poverty, psychopathology of a parent, parental abuse, children’s temperament and other possible sources of vulnerability like coping strategies and styles, age or developmental level, gender and gender-related personal characteristics, social-cognitive factors, including perceptions of personal competence, and stress and symptoms experienced by family members (Cummings, 1991, p. 117).

The Stress Response – Fight or Flight

Stress is due to the problems, pressures, surprises, and disappointments which are an inevitable part of life. Consequently, in the course of stress evolution, man developed a mechanism to help out in adversity called the ‘fight or flight’ response. This ‘fight or flight’ response is an inbuilt coping kit that automatically comes into operation in times of pressure and emergency and makes people function, temporarily, even more effectively and efficiently than they normally would in all three areas of functioning – physical, behavioural, and cognitive.

In a normal stress response the body automatically musters up its resources and works to its own advantage when the sudden need arises. Bodily reactions to stress are complex, and they involve the autonomic part of the nervous system thereby producing a hormone called ‘adrenalin’ which is produced by the adrenal glands. This acts on the muscles, blood vessels, skin, sweat glands, and the digestive system and prepares the body for ‘fight or flight’. Adrenalin makes the muscles relax in order to facilitate the flow of blood to them, because they require more blood than usual for action.

To compensate for this extra blood supply to the muscles, blood vessels in other areas are constricted thus, the pale face of the stressed person. There is also increased pressure on the body’s pump, the heart; so the heart rate is increased. This, in turn, creates a greater need for oxygen, and breathing therefore becomes more rapid. All this autonomic activity results in a depletion of the body’s water supply; people perspire when under pressure (e.g., sweaty palms) and when cooling down after action. Water is drawn from other parts of the body, the most familiar consequence being a dry mouth. Everyone experiences stress symptoms when surprised, frightened, or in an emergency. These reactions are normal and they help people cope with the inevitable stresses of life.

On a behavioural level, if the response is positive, stress would pressurize people ‘get their act together’ more quickly and efficiently than they normally would. For example if one has some workload, he or she would skilfully and purposefully get his head down in the office or at the workplace thereby getting all his actions being comfortably coordinated. Similarly on a cognitive level, if the response is positive there is an increase in speed and efficiency. In a crisis situation, for example, people can find themselves surprisingly calm, their thoughts efficiently and quickly guiding the appropriate coping responses. Likewise, when well-prepared at a pressurized interview, people find that they can think clearly and quickly, all the relevant facts and figures springing to mind.

Coping with Stress

Under a certain amount of pressure, the mind is equipped to cope and react accordingly. People function more effectively than usual with thinking more quick and clear and under excessive or prolonged pressure, people can experience any of a number of disconcerting stress symptoms. When people are worried, tired, stressed, or overstretched, they simply do not have this extra space, this openness to attend to the outside world. Stress makes the people thinking and mental reactions slower, and, frequently, this is obvious to others by their acts.

The coping process is composed of three stages, the stressed individual’s action, the specific context or environment in which he decides to cope, and how an individual’s actions change as the stressful encounter unfolds. The entire coping process may take a few moments or hours or may continue over weeks or even years.

By adopting healthy activities stress can be coped like taking regular counselling therapies and sessions that emphasize on smoking cessation programs, properly incorporate dietary and exercise interventions for weight control. Exercise and physical activity data for women in the United States, which may be more unfavourable than in some European populations, show that 6 out of 10 U.S. women are sedentary, with a tendency toward a sedentary lifestyle that has been progressive over recent years. Physical inactivity is more likely to be associated with lower educational levels and lower income levels responsible for incorporating stress and depression. Increased levels of physical fitness are associated with more favourable coronary risk profiles, with this association being more powerful for women than for men. Habitual exercise is associated with decreased coronary risk even in old age, although the mechanisms remain conjectural.

There are various ways to reduce stress which vary and are often conflicting. In everyday conversation, stress may be referred to as an affliction or something that happens to a person. An event can be ‘stressful’ or can leave one ‘stressed out’, therefore in popular magazines, articles instruct readers about ways to reduce stress through changes in diet, exercise, work habits, meditation, and numerous other ways.

Stress coping with children and adults require parents and their counsellors to be patient. It is seen that inner stress can be coped up be adopting a healthy life style. The mood states and emotions associated with physical activity have a potentially important role in health promotion and stress balance. If we believe that physical activity is positive health behaviour in order to avoid stress, it would be encouraged and promoted to see how people feel during and after activity that may be critical in determining whether they maintain their involvement. Therefore emotion and mood may have motivational properties in order to retain a stress-free life for an important health-related behaviour.

Self-help Strategies

For many of us, much of the stress we experience results from our relationships, particularly with colleagues and family members. Therefore, it is essential that teachers or counsellors develop the skills of communicating assertively in order to reduce the stress levels in their interpersonal relationships. Full use should be made of the assertion skills including saying ‘no’ when you need to; expressing feelings constructively using ‘I’ messages; being able to both give and receive helpful feedback; and developing behavioural strategies for dealing with criticism or aggression. Assertive behaviour can enable us to develop mutually satisfying relationships with the significant people in our lives and as such is a key survival strategy.

Another important strategy that helps coping stress is the ability develop skills to be prepared to talk through personal concerns with an empathetic listener. Discussing problems with other people can enable us to hear our own stories and make sense of them. If we are lucky and have a skilful listener, they might even challenge us to take back a sense of control by working on strategies for dealing with the situation in a more assertive manner. Sharing your concerns with someone who has experienced similar problems can in itself be calming, since this generates a feeling of ‘being in the same boat’ which is widely acknowledged to be therapeutic. Try to stay aware of maintaining, and if possible expanding, personal support networks, so that during the tough times there will be people available to share concerns and fears.

Another key survival skill for stress is the ability to ask for help. When it becomes really difficult to cope with the happenings of daily life, it is vital for counsellors or teachers to be able to ask for help from colleagues or friends. Asking for help can make us feel vulnerable, exactly the opposite image that counsellors or teachers often feel required presenting to the world at large (Hornby et al, 2003, p. 157). Other useful strategies for coping with stress are those which are based on centring, breathing and relaxation techniques. Hypnotism, massage and various forms of meditation and yoga all involve combinations of these three types of technique and have been used for centuries to help people cope with the stress of living. Techniques which have become popular more recently for facilitating relaxation are guided fantasy and progressive relaxation.

Works Cited

Alluisi A. Earl, (1982) Human Performance and Productivity: Stress and Performance Effectiveness: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Hillsdale, NJ.

Cummings E. Mark, Greene L. Anita & Karraker H. Katherine, (1991) Life-Span Developmental Psychology: Perspectives on Stress and Coping: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Hillsdale, NJ.

Driskell E. James & Salas Eduardo, (1996) Stress and Human Performance: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahwah, NJ.

Flanagan M. Catherine, (1990) People and Change: An Introduction to Counselling and Stress Management: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Hillsdale, NJ.

Hornby Garry, Hall Carol & Hall Eric, (2003) Counselling Pupils in Schools: Skills and Strategies for Teachers: RoutledgeFalmer: London.

Johnson L. Sheri, Hayes M. Adele, M. field Tiffany & Schneiderman Neil, (2000) Stress, Coping and Depression: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahwah, NJ.

Lewis Michael & Ramsay Douglas, (1999) Soothing and Stress: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahwah, NJ.

Payne L. Roy & Cozens Jenny Firth, (1999) Stress in Health Professionals: Psychological and Organisational Causes and Interventions: Wiley: New York.

Stress, 2008a. Web.

Stress, 2008b. Web.

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