Stress is usually called high nervous tension or strong emotional excitement caused by the crazy rhythm of the modern world. People who constantly live in such conditions experience chronic stress. This condition can lead to a variety of negative consequences for all body systems. Is it possible to somehow protect yourself from chronic stress without giving up on your goals, without changing life priorities and living environment? According to scientists, this is quite real. Moreover, it turns out that there is even an inoculation against stress, which everyone can do. But does it always bring only harm? Let's try to figure it out.
Stress short-term and chronic
According to many scientists, stress is a whole complex of adaptations of the body to various environmental factors developed in the course of evolution in order to protect and adapt. Since no environment can be permanent, the ability to withstand changes occurring in it is a very useful property. But such a statement is true only if the extraordinary situation is not toocritical and short lived. Stress in such cases is called short-term. Physiologists believe that small and short shakes for our psyche are something like gymnastics. If the uncomfortable situation drags on for an indefinitely long time, the person begins to experience chronic stress or permanent psychological trauma of the personality. There is no benefit in this, because not a single living being is able to endure either physical or psychological stress indefinitely without harming its he alth.
Chronic stress factors
There are many factors that can cause chronic stress. Causes, or, as scientists say, "stressors", are physiological and psychological.
Physiological include:
- pain;
- severely ill;
- critical temperatures of the human environment;
- hunger and/or thirst;
- taking medications;
- noise and bustle of city streets;
- fatigue, increased stress.
Psychological include:
- competition, constant striving to be better than others;
- constant striving for excellence, and as a result, critical self-assessment;
- immediate environment (for example, a team of employees);
- information overload;
- fear of losing one's social status, being "overboard";
- isolation, loneliness physical or spiritual;
- the desire to do everything;
- setting unrealistictasks;
- disharmony in the family.
Stress stages
According to the theory of Canadian physiologist Hans Selye, chronic stress develops in three stages:
- Anxiety reaction. A person begins to be visited by annoying thoughts that something is going on in his life or should happen wrong, that he is not considered, he is not understood. Depending on the type of stressor, a person may also feel discomfort from environmental conditions (noise, heat) or feel pain, easily relieved by drugs, but causing concern. At the first stage, the sympathetic nervous system becomes excited, the hypothalamus excites the pituitary gland, which, in turn, produces the hormone ACTH, and the adrenal glands produce corticosteroids, which increase the body's readiness to withstand stressors.
- Resistance. Hans Selye conventionally called it "flight or fight."
- Exhaustion. The body reaches this stage, as a rule, during chronic stress, when negative factors act on a person for too long or there is a constant change from one factor to another. At the stage of exhaustion, the resources and capabilities of the body are sharply reduced.
Types of stress
Short-term stress can be both negative and positive. In the second case, it is called "good", or eustress. It can be triggered by some pleasant events and states (winning the lottery, creative upsurge) and almost never harms he alth. Only in isolated cases, high positive emotions can cause problems, for example,violation of cardiac activity.
Chronic stress is only negative. In medicine, it is called "bad", or distress. It is provoked by various sad and unpleasant events in all aspects of human life. Distress almost always results in poor he alth.
"Good" and "bad" stress are divided into three types:
- biological;
- psychological;
- emotional.
Chronic biological stress
The theory of this type of stress was considered in detail by Hans Selye. In general, biological stress is a set of body reactions to physiological adverse environmental effects, which are always real and always pose a threat to life. These can be biological, chemical or physical factors (weather, illness, injury). Selye called biological stress the “s alt of life,” which, like ordinary s alt, is good in moderation.
Biological chronic stress occurs on the basis of a long-term illness, forced living in unfavorable climatic conditions.
Often the active factor is also prolonged physical activity. If they pass against the background of constant nervous overstrain (the desire to prove something to everyone, to achieve the unattainable), a person, in addition to physical, develops chronic fatigue. Stress in this case provokes a lot of he alth troubles - diseases of the digestive system, skin, cardiovascular and nervous systems, even the occurrence of cancer.
Chronic psychological stress
This type of stress differs from others in that it is “launched” into action not only by those negative factors that have already happened or are happening at a given time, but also by those that (according to the individual) can only happen and which he is afraid. The second feature of this stress is that a person can almost always assess the degree of his ability to eliminate an unfavorable situation. No matter how severe psychological chronic stress is, it does not cause obvious damage to the body and does not threaten life. The causes of psychological stress are only social relationships and / or their own thoughts. Among them are:
- memory of past failures;
- motivation of actions ("cheating" oneself in the need to get everything at the highest level);
- own life attitudes;
- uncertainty and long wait.
Personal qualities of a person, his character and temperament have a great influence on the occurrence of psychological stress.
Chronic emotional stress
According to both physicians and physiologists, it is this type of stress that affects the increase in mortality. Emotions have developed in people during evolution, as a component of their survival. Human behavior focuses primarily on the manifestation of joyful and pleasant feelings. However, rapid scientific and technological progress leads to disharmony of the human state of mind, which causes negative emotions. All of them are detrimental tohe alth. Thus, anger destroys the liver, anxiety destroys the spleen, fear and sadness destroy the kidneys, jealousy and envy destroy the heart. Factors that cause chronic emotional stress include:
- failure to realize one's desires;
- expanding the spectrum of communication in society;
- lack of time;
- urbanization;
- an inexhaustible stream of unnecessary information;
- violation of one's own physiological biorhythms;
- high informational and emotional workloads.
In addition, many people constantly experience in their souls already lived situations in which they could not avoid misfortunes or defeats. Very often accompanies emotional chronic stress depression, which is a state of extreme emotional depression of the individual. A person becomes indifferent to himself and others. Life loses value for him. WHO data says depression currently accounts for 65% of all mental illnesses.
Signs of stress in others
How can you tell if someone in your community is chronically stressed? Symptoms may include:
- lack of interest in anything (work, news);
- inexplicable aggressiveness (any remark is perceived "with hostility") or, conversely, isolation, "withdrawal";
- carelessness, misunderstanding of the tasks assigned to him, which were previously solved easily;
- memory weakening;
- appearance of tearfulness, which was previously unusual for a person, frequent complaints about hisfate;
- nervousness, fussiness, anxiety;
- never seen before craving for alcohol, smoking;
- unreasonable mood swings;
- appearance of uncontrolled movements (some start tapping their feet, others bite their nails).
Signs of stress in yourself
All of the above symptoms that characterize the state of chronic stress can be not only in people from our environment, but also in ourselves. In addition to such external manifestations, we can additionally observe the following symptoms of stress in ourselves:
- headache, migraine;
- sleep disturbance (difficulty falling asleep, and if sleep does come, it doesn't last long);
- lack of appetite or, conversely, constantly hungry;
- no taste of food;
- breaking stool;
- chest pain;
- dizziness;
- lowered immunity;
- irritability (I don't like absolutely everything, everything gets in the way);
- indifference to sex;
- indifference to loved ones, to beloved animals, to their hobbies;
- fatigue;
- the appearance of thoughts about their uselessness, worthlessness, inferiority.
Treatment
Some don't see chronic stress as a big deal. Treatment, according to such people, is not required, you just need to change the situation, allow yourself to relax. However, if you are experiencing symptoms of chronic stress, you should visittherapist. He will prescribe a series of tests to exclude all diseases that have symptoms similar to stress. If nothing dangerous is found, the doctor usually prescribes vitamins and sedatives. Sometimes sleeping pills, tranquilizers, antidepressants are prescribed. A good effect is given by traditional medicine, which offers many soothing teas with mint, lemon balm, honey.
We must not forget that frequent infectious diseases can also provoke chronic stress. Immunity in people in a stressful situation is always weakened, which contributes to infection. Therefore, it is desirable to introduce immunomodulators into the course of therapy. They can be synthetic - "Cycloferon", "Viferon" and others, or natural - echinacea, wild rose, ginseng.
But all these and other drugs help only temporarily, if you do not deal with stress psychologically, with the help of your mind.
Stress Inoculation
The method of stress-vaccination therapy was developed by the Canadian psychologist Meichenbaum. It consists of three phases of psychological impact:
- Conceptual (explanatory). The doctor helps the patient understand that he himself is the source of negative feelings and thoughts, helps to reconsider the problem, develop a strategy for solving it, and increase self-esteem.
- Formation of new skills and abilities. The doctor invites the patient to mentally imagine a solution to his problem, note all the obstacles that may arise, change the strategy until the most acceptable option is reached.
- Practicing new skills. In this case, goodrole play results.
Unconventional methods can also help to cope with stress - yoga, breathing exercises, relaxation.
