Interest in the role stress plays with the dynamics of health has resulted in a proliferation of strategies designed to minimize or “manage” stress. To many people, the very term “stress” elicits a negative response. Yet the notion that stress is
Interest in the role stress plays with the dynamics of health has resulted in a proliferation of strategies designed to minimize or “manage” stress. To many people, the very term “stress” elicits a negative response. Yet the notion that stress is an enemy we must resist or manage betrays a widespread misunderstanding of the nature of stress and how it affects our lives.
The Austrian-Canadian endocrinologist Hans Selye pioneered investigations of the biological effects of stress in 1936 with the publication of his paper, “A Syndrome Produced by Diverse Noxious Agents.” Since then, more than 100,000 articles and books have been written on the subject. Selye describes stress as the nonspecific response to any demand.
Experimental studies by Selye and other investigators revealed that when physical, chemical, or emotional demands were imposed on an animal, three stages could be identified which characterize the response:
- Alarm. The initial reaction to the stressor.
- Adaptation. The responses following the initial reaction.
- Exhaustion. When the limits of adaptation are exceeded, and the animal can no longer appropriately respond.
Although many individuals have concluded that stress is inevitably destructive, this view is incorrect. As Selye noted, “Stress is not necessarily bad for you. It is also the spice of life, for any emotion, any activity causes stress… the same stress that makes one person sick is an invigorating experience for another…Complete absence of stress is incompatible with life since only a dead man makes no demand on his body or mind.”
Selye described two types of stress: dis-stress—from the Latin “bad,” as in dissonance; and eu-stress— from the Greek “true” or “good,” as in eutonia.
Whether we experience a pleasant or unpleasant result from an event depends upon how our nervous system perceives, processes, and interprets that event. “Every living being has a certain innate amount of adaptation energy or vitality,” Selye wrote. “The endocrine glands and the nervous system—help us both to adjust to the constant changes which occur in and around us, and to navigate a steady course toward whatever we consider a worthwhile goal.”
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