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Awaiting moderation 17504 Article |
The nature of stress THE NATURE OF STRESS
What is stress? Sky-rocketing interest rates. An unfaithful husband. Problems with the tax-man. Children on drugs. An impossible boss. An unwanted pregnancy. If you believe that such matters are stress, we are not on the same wavelength in understanding what stress is all about.
'I know what stress is. I can feel it.' No. You don't feel stress. What you feel is some malfunction of your body due to the anxiety which has been caused by stress.
Well, what is stress?
As I see it, stress is the disharmony of brain function that arises when our brain is unable to integrate all the information it receives.
Looked at in a more homely way, stress is the disparity between the adverse circumstances of our life and our ability to cope with them.
There are always two sides to stress. On the one hand there are the problems, and on the other hand there is the coping.
If we have some practical problem and if it is of considerable magnitude, our coping will be so much the more difficult. If the impulses arriving at our brain reach such a level of intensity that our brain cannot sort them out and integrate them, our brain function becomes disorganized.
This produces the various bodily and mental malfunctions which we recognize as the symptoms of stress.
Often there is some major problem which initiates the bulk of the disturbing impulses to our brain. But the main problem always operates on a background of lesser problems which contribute their share of disturbing impulses, and so add to the effect of the major problem.
Of course, the magnitude and severity of the major problem will play an important part in determining whether it will generate sufficient nervous impulses to disturb the harmony of our brain function. But the magnitude of the problem by itself does not produce stress. There is always this other factor. Our coping.
Coping with the nervous impulses arising from a major problem occurs at two levels. There is the practical level. What can we do in terms of practical reality towards putting things right? Then there is the other level of coping. What can we do to make it easier for our brain to integrate the flood of messages it is receiving?
In many life situations, the major problem is an event which is quite outside our control. So for practical purposes, our main way of avoiding stress is learning ways of helping our brain integrate the flood of impulses coming to it.
We are living beings. Over countless generations we have evolved a whole host of compensatory mechanisms to help us if we come under strain from one source or another. In strenuous exercise our heart rate is increased and so is the rate and depth of our breathing. We have similar restorative mechanisms to help us if our brain is over-taxed by a flood of nervous impulses from our problems. Those few fortunate people among us who have unconsciously learned to call upon these inner resources enhance the coping power of their brain, and suffer little stress. In this way they come to experience a dimension of life that eludes most of us.
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