Stress is called high nervous tension or strong emotional excitement caused by the crazy rhythm of the modern world. People constantly living in such conditions have chronic stress. This condition can lead to a variety of negative consequences for all body systems. Is there any way to protect yourself from chronic stress without giving up goals, without changing life priorities and living environment? According to scientists, this is quite real. Moreover, it turns out that there is even a vaccine against stress, which everyone can do. But does it always bring only harm? Let's try to figure it out.
Short-term and chronic stress
According to many scientists, stress is a whole complex of adaptations of an organism to various environmental factors that has developed during evolution in order to protect and adapt. Since no medium can be constant, 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 too critical and does not last long. 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 constant personality trauma. There is no benefit in this, because not a single living creature is capable of enduring infinitely long physical or psychological stress without harming its health.
Chronic Stress Factors
There are many factors that can cause chronic stress. Reasons, or, as scientists say, “stressors,” are physiological and psychological.
The physiological include:
- pain;
- severe illness;
- critical environmental temperatures;
- hunger and / or thirst;
- taking medications;
- the noise and bustle of city streets;
- fatigue, increased stress.
The psychological ones include:
- competition, a constant desire to be better than others;
- constant pursuit of excellence, and as a result, critical self-esteem;
- the immediate environment (for example, a team of employees);
- information overloads;
- fear of losing their social status, staying “overboard”;
- isolation, loneliness, physical or spiritual;
- the desire to do everything;
- statement of unrealistic tasks;
- disharmony in the family.
Stages of stress
According to the theory of the Canadian physiologist Hans Selye, chronic stress develops in three stages:
- Anxiety reaction. An annoying thought begins to come to the person that something is going on in his life or something must happen that they don’t take him into account, they don’t understand him. Depending on the type of stressor, a person may also feel discomfort from environmental conditions (noise, heat) or feel pains that are easily stopped by drugs, but cause concern. At the first stage, the sympathetic nervous system becomes agitated, the hypothalamus stimulates the pituitary gland, which, in turn, produces the hormone ACTH, and the adrenal glands produce corticosteroids, which increase the body’s readiness to resist stressors.
- Resistance. Hans Selye conditionally called her "to run or fight."
- Exhaustion. The body reaches this stage, as a rule, during chronic stress, when negative factors affect the person for too long or a constant change of one factor to another occurs. At the stage of depletion, the resources and capabilities of the body are sharply reduced.
Types of stress
Short-term stress can be either negative or positive. In the second case, it is called "good", or eustress. It can be triggered by any pleasant events and conditions (winning a lottery, a creative upsurge) and almost never harm health. Only in isolated cases, high positive emotions can cause problems, for example, impaired cardiac activity.
Chronic stress is only negative. In medicine, it is called "bad," or distress. It provokes various sad and unpleasant events in all aspects of human life. Distress almost always leads to poor health.
“Good” and “bad” stresses are divided into three types:
- biological;
- psychological;
- emotional.
Chronic Biological Stress
The theory of this type of stress was examined in detail by Hans Selye. In general, biological stress is a set of reactions of the body to physiological adverse environmental influences that are always real and always pose a threat to life. It can be biological, chemical or physical factors (weather, illness, injuries). Selye called biological stress “the salt of life”, which, like ordinary salt, is good in moderation.
Biological chronic stress arises on the basis of a long-term current illness, forced living in adverse climatic conditions.
Often, active physical activity is also a factor. If they pass on the background of constant nervous strain (the desire to prove something to everyone, to achieve the unattainable), a person, except the physical one, develops chronic fatigue. Stress in this case provokes a lot of health troubles - diseases of the digestive system, skin, cardiovascular and nervous system, even the occurrence of cancer.
Chronic psychological stress
This type of stress differs from others in that it is “triggered” by not only those negative factors that have already happened or are happening at a given time, but also those that (according to the individual) can only happen and which he is afraid of. 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 own thoughts. Among them are:
- memory of past failures;
- motivation of actions (“cheating” oneself in the need to get everything on the highest level);
- own life attitudes;
- the uncertainty of the situation and the long wait.
The 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 developed in people during evolution, as a component of their survival. Human behavior is oriented 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 to health. So, anger destroys the liver, anxiety of the spleen, fear and sadness of the kidney, jealousy and envy of the heart. The factors causing emotional chronic stress are as follows:
- inability to fulfill their desires;
- expansion of the spectrum of communication in society;
- lack of time;
- urbanization;
- inexhaustible stream of unnecessary information;
- violation of their own physiological biorhythms;
- high informational and emotional stress at work.
In addition, many people constantly experience in their hearts already experienced situations in which they could not avoid unhappiness or defeat. Very often, emotional chronic stress is accompanied by depression, which is a state of extreme emotional depression of an individual. A person becomes indifferent to himself and others. Life for him is losing value. WHO data say that depression currently accounts for 65% of all mental illnesses.
Signs of stress in others
How to determine if someone in your environment has chronic stress? Symptoms may include:
- lack of interest in anything (work, news);
- inexplicable aggressiveness (any remark is perceived “with hostility”) or, conversely, isolation, “withdrawal into oneself”;
- inattention, misunderstanding of the tasks set before him, which were previously easily solved;
- memory impairment;
- the appearance of tearfulness unusual for a person, frequent complaints about his fate;
- nervousness, fussiness, anxiety;
- previously not observed craving for alcohol, smoking;
- causeless mood swings;
- the appearance of uncontrolled movements (some begin to tap with their feet, others - bite their nails).
Signs of stress in oneself
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:
- headache, migraines;
- sleep disturbance (it is difficult to fall asleep, but if the dream does come, it does not last long);
- lack of appetite or, conversely, constantly hungry;
- no taste of food;
- violation of the stool;
- chest pain
- dizziness;
- decreased immunity;
- irritability (I do not like absolutely everything, everything interferes);
- 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 do not consider chronic stress a great danger. Treatment, according to such people, is not required, you just need to change the situation, allow yourself to relax. Nevertheless, if symptoms of chronic stress are found in oneself, a visit to the therapist is necessary. He will prescribe a series of tests to rule out all diseases that have symptoms similar to stress. If nothing dangerous is found, the doctor prescribes, as a rule, vitamins and sedatives. Sometimes sleeping pills, tranquilizers, antidepressants are prescribed. Traditional medicine offers a good effect, offering many soothing teas with mint, lemon balm and honey.
We must not forget that frequent infectious diseases are also able to 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, rosehip, ginseng.
But all these and other medicines help only temporarily, if you do not deal with stress psychologically, with the help of your mind.
Stress vaccine
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 review the problem, develop a strategy for solving it, and increase self-esteem.
- The formation of new skills. The doctor suggests that the patient mentally imagine a solution to his problem, note all the obstacles that may arise, change the strategy until the most acceptable option is reached.
- Putting new skills into practice. In this case, role-playing games give good results.
Non-traditional methods such as yoga, breathing exercises, and relaxation can also help with stress.