Anxious Living : What is Stress and Why is it Bad ?
Vance Pitman
Everything you experience in life is a stress test — successes , failures , relationships , work , family , sickness , uncertainty , finances , good times and dreams , bad times and tragedies — all of it increases the pressure on you and within you until your areas of weakness become clear . Sometimes that pressure increases gradually throughout your childhood and school and marriage and career . Or , sometimes that pressure gets piled up all at once in a moment of crisis .
What ’ s the goal of all that pressure , you wonder ? What ’ s the point ?
To reveal the condition of your heart .
What Is Stress , Anyway ? Before we go any further , let ’ s make sure we ’ re on the same page about this idea of stress ( or anxiety or worry ). Because the concept of stress generally ( and those words individually ) can mean different things to different people . Here ’ s how the dictionary defines stress :
Physiology . A specific response by the body to a stimulus , as fear or pain , that disturbs or interferes with the normal physiological equilibrium of an organism .
Physical , mental , or emotional strain or tension .
Those definitions are technically accurate . They are semantically correct . But they don ’ t really convey what it ’ s like to experience stress in real life . Yes , stress is a physiological response within our bodies , but it ’ s also much more than that . Yes , stress can be described as “ strain ” or “ tension ,” but it ’ s hard to articulate in any meaningful way what that actually feels like .
Below is a more true-to-life definition I came up with .
Stress : Fearful concern experienced when life ’ s demands seem greater than my ability to meet them .
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