Understanding Stress

Understanding Stress

“It’s not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it.”
- Hans Selye
Time Magazine (June, 1983) called stress “The Epidemic of the Eighties,” and regarded
it as the leading health problem. There can be little doubt that the situation has
progressively worsened since then. Contemporary stress tends to be even more
pervasive, persistent and insidious. Recent statistics reveal that:
• Stress is now the number one reason behind sickness from work.” (Gee
Publishing Survey)
• “More than two-thirds of people are suffering from work related stress.” (ICM
Research)
• “Stress in the workplace is undermining performance and productivity in 9 out
of 10 organizations.”

Stress is defined as the emotional and physical strain caused by a person’s response
to pressure from the outside world. It occurs when there is a mismatch between what
the people aspire to do what they are capable of doing. In other words, stress results
when the pressure to perform a certain task is greater than the resources available to
perform it.
S = P > R
[S - Stress; P-Pressure; R- Resource]

Stress is not altogether a modern phenomenon. Stress has been of concern in the
medical profession since the days of Hippocrates. Walter Cannon, a physiologist at
Harvard, however, formalized the modern notion of stress, at the beginning of the
twentieth century. Cannon described the “flight or fight response”, a heightened arousal
state that prepares an organism to deal with threats. When under threat, one’s body
releases a rush of adrenaline in order to allow a ‘fight or flight’ response

Medical research suggests that some thirty hormones are released as part of the
body’s automatic and innate “fight or flight” stress response. These hormones provide
quick energy to cope with emergencies and exigencies. Stress hormones often build
and, without release, contribute to wear and tear. Excessive stress can inhibit the body’s
immune system functioning and directly impair the functioning of key body systems.
This is the reason why stress can increase one’s susceptibility to illness, exacerbate
an illness, or protract recovery from an illness.
Unrelieved stress, over time, can take the form of:
• Tense muscles that lead to headache, neck-ache, jaw-ache, back-ache
• Stomach pain, indigestion, bowel upset, ulcers
• Feelings of anxiety, nervousness, tension, helplessness
• Increasing anger or irritability, chest pain
• Depression, exhaustion, lack of concentration, insomnia
• Restlessness, boredom, confusion, the impulse to run and hide
Persons who are stressed may “take out” their frustration on those around them. Others
may keep their feelings to themselves and experience a sullen gloomy feeling or a
sense of isolation.