Faith On The Line - Stress, Stress Go Away Vol 18 | Page 22

What is stress?

Contrary to the way the buzzword
“stress” is used these days, stress is not the
situation in life a person is facing. The situations in life are actually the stressors—the
things that cause stress. Stress-response
researcher Dr. Hans Seyle defined stress as
“the non-specific response of the body to
any demand for change.” I like to think of
stress as the effect situations of life have upon
a person’s body and mind.
There are two kinds of stress:
eustress, the healthy kind that benefits a person’s body and mind and
distress, the unhealthy kind that is
damaging to body and mind.

Stress is not the
situation a person
is facing.

Questions and Answers
by Pastor Dan Gabbert

about Stress

How is stress experienced?
We experience stress in at least
two ways:
Its effect upon the body through
environment and lifestyle, such as
the invigorating eustress created by healthy,
balanced exercise in the fresh air and sunshine, or the harmful distress of eating too
much at mealtime or staying up all hours of
the night to finish a project.

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Its effect upon the body via our
mental and spiritual perceptions of
current or past life situations, such as the
eustressing effect of choosing to view the
experience of being stuck in a traffic jam as
an opportunity to spend time in prayer, or
the distressing effect of viewing that same
traffic jam as the very worst thing that
could happen that day.
Concerning distress, the reality is that
overdoing any activity creates damaging
distress. Any situation of life that is not
viewed and handled in a healthy way can
also become a distressor—a stressinducing situation.
Mishandled stressors can cause distress physically, mentally, and spiritually.

When the demands upon my time or
energy exceed my resources to handle it
healthfully, I experience physical distress.
When I’m mentally or morally challenged
with an experience I perceive to be a threat to my sense of wellbeing, I have a distressor on my hands. My body reacts in order to
protect and preserve itself, causing the “fight or flight” reaction
that affects every cell in my body. Even dwelling upon a distressing
experience of the past can induce this same reaction!

Could you give us some insights into the effects of
stress on the spiritual side of our nature?
Here are some Biblical laws or principles of the heart and mind
that really come into play in our response to life’s stressors:
Proverbs 23:7: “as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.”
Matthew 12:34 adds understanding: “out of the abundance of
the heart the mouth speaketh.”
Matthew 15:19-20 adds to the list of things that originate
from the heart and produce
damaging distress in a
person’s body and mind: “For
out of the heart proceed evil
thoughts, mur \