Understanding Stress
a physiological approach
What is stress?
Stress is basically a physiological response our body has to a situation outside in the
environment or within our own mind that makes us feel threatened in some way.
There is chronic stress – i.e. stress that has built up over a long time, and there is acute
stress – it is in the moment (like a fight, or someone screaming at you, and stressing you
out).
Symptoms of stress
When we are stressed…
We find it hard to concentrate.
We don’t make very good decisions.
We tend to interpret things negatively.
Behaviourally, we either eat too much to feel better or we lose our appetite.
We know if we did a few things we would feel better but we just can’t bring
ourselves to do it.
We are irritable, or we feel overwhelmed, and low.
Physically we all have our unique warning mechanisms – our shoulders become
stiff, someone’s stomach gives up on them, someone gets lower back pain.
Simply put, we can’t think right, we are really defensive with everyone, we feel
overwhelmed, and our body goes into stress response.
The reason I am stressing on the physiology of stress is because I think that is something
we don’t understand as well, and also because our body is the lens through which we
interact with the world. So, if we are not at ease in our bodies, we are predisposed to
interpreting things not as they are really.
The physiology of stress
The stress response comes under the domain of the autonomic nervous system. This
nervous system is outside of our volition. It controls our breathing, our digestion, all
the organ systems. It is also what kicks in our survival responses into place when we feel
threatened. For instance, if you are going to fall from a flight of stairs, you will reach for
the railing without knowing it. That’s the autonomic nervous system in place. At night,
if you are walking in an alley that is not well-lit and you are hyper-vigilant, that’s the
autonomic nervous system in place.
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