The History Of The Meaning Of Stress Philosophy Essay
|✅ Paper Type: Free Essay||✅ Subject: Philosophy|
|✅ Wordcount: 4597 words||✅ Published: 1st Jan 2015|
In
The History Of The Meaning Of Stress Philosophy Essay
|✅ Paper Type: Free Essay||✅ Subject: Philosophy|
|✅ Wordcount: 4597 words||✅ Published: 1st Jan 2015|
In psychological terms, stress is a feeling of pressure, strain, anxiety, being overwhelmed. It is characterized by overall irritability, feeling of insecurity, nervousness, withdrawal from social activities, loss of appetite, depression, frequent panic attacks, exhaustion, low / high blood pressure, skin problems, inability to sleep, migraine, gastrointestinal problems (constipation or diarrhea) and menstrual problems in case of women. It can lead to more serious problems e.g. heart problems, etc.
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Stress in small amounts may be desirable, beneficial and even healthy for us in some cases.. Positive stress helps improve our performance and keeps us focused on our targets and also “on out toes”. It also plays a major role in motivating us, helping us in adapting to the environment and any changes therein and also manages our reaction to the environment.
However, excess of anything is bad. This is true in case of stress also. Large amounts of stress can cause many problems in the body that will be harmful to us. Stress could be something external, that is, related to the environment or it could be something internal, that is, affected by the internal perceptions of an individual that cause him to experience feelings of anxiety / negative emotions in relation to a given situation. Examples of negative emotions are pressure, discomfort, etc., which in excess prove to be harmful for us.
For individuals experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), external factors that are not considered to be stressful or threatening to the individual are deemed as such. Examples of some such triggers are – Reporting stress on hearing a particular song or a particular tune, seeing something that may remind the individual of prior events that he found threatening to himself. People experience feelings of stress, or perceive things to be threatening to themselves, when they believe that the resources that they have are insufficient for coping with difficulties. It can also be said that people think they do not have the resources that the circumstances demand them to possess. These difficulties may be some stimuli, situations or people. When people believe that the demands being placed upon them are beyond their coping ability, they perceive stress (negative).
CAUSES OF STRESS
Any stimulus that is perceived to be a threat, may it be a particular situation, circumstance, etc. is called a stressor if it promotes or causes an individual to experience stress. Some of the most common stressors in an individual’s life are –
Personal Circumstances – The personal circumstances of the individual are perhaps the most important stressor in an individual’s life. These include any financial difficulties ha may be experiencing, any conflicts he may have with his family or friends, etc. These give a lot of stress to the individual.
Health Status – An individual’s health status is also a cause of stress to him. If the individual is going through some health problems e.g. he has a disease like malaria, he will experience a lot of tension.
In case the individual is poor, he will worry about the cost of treatment, hospital bills, etc. In case of a student, he will worry about the amount of studies that he will miss, the homework, assignments, etc that he will have to submit when he gets better, etc. In case of an employee, he will worry about the backlog of his work, whether his job in the organization is safe or he will be replaced, etc. Thus, health status is also a major stressor in the individual’s life.
Ethnicity, Gender, Age or Disability – Ethnicity refers to a person belonging to a particular place, culture, etc. Sometimes the individual is subjected to bias on the basis of non – ethnicity (in case of Indians working in Norway, the natives of Norway getting preference over Indians even though they may not be as competitive as the Indians), gender (not accepting individual for a particular post in the organization because of gender; this is usually found in the cases of women). Such bias also lead to a lot of frustration arising within the individual and giving him stress.
Also, age of the individual is also a stressor for him. When he grows old, he starts worrying about his retirement, whether the company will firm him because of his inability to work productively any longer, how he will support himself, etc. This gives him a lot of stress. Similarly, disability is also a cause of stress for the individual.
Personality – The personality of the individual also affects the amount of stress that he takes, how much he is affected by the different stressors, etc. e.g. Someone, who has an easygoing, “happy – go – lucky” nature will not take a lot of stress or not take any undue stress. On the other hand, a pessimistic person will always be under a lot of stress as he will always think the worst in every situation and take a lot of stress from the same. Thus, personality of the i