My favorite topic is sharp and exciting, exhausting, invigorating, slimming, spreading like an epidemic, fashionable and explaining everything. Stress is the omnipresent ghost of megacities and eminence grise social games.
— Why do we need stress (after all, in nature nothing happens for nothing)
- How is stress beneficial?
— How do students and mothers of small children survive without sleep and rest during the session?
— What is the “Hans Selye triad”?
Let's first understand the many faces of the concept of “stress”.
We often confuse stress with a stressor - a result with a causative factor. Another one modern trend focus more on a certain traumatic situation. But a stressor is ANY impact on the body, strength and intensity, which exceeds usual. And stress is what happens to the body as a result of a stressor or stressor.
I usually eat 1 croissant for breakfast, but yesterday I ate four. The stomach is swollen - stress for the body - how to digest it?
I always drive a car and hardly walk with my legs, but yesterday I started skiing and skied like crazy all day - today everything hurts - stress for the body: extreme physical activity.
Any infection or injury.
I moved from Salekhard to Sochi - my body is in shock - the climate is different, I need to readjust.
Information stress – preparing for a performance, exam. Pregnancy. Chronic stress – bad relationship in the family, unloved job. Acute stress is tragic news.
To understand why nature invented stress, we need to consider its stages and mechanisms using a specific example.
Let's take for example a woman whose child is sick.
The first stage of stress is Mobilization or Anxiety.
In response to stress, an alarm sounds in the body. Caution - danger! - Mom hears. Even if the child gets sick at night, she quickly wakes up, sleep in neither eye, the general tone sharply increases, the pressure rises, the blood vessels narrow, and so on. The woman begins to worry and think very quickly: which pharmacy is open at three in the morning and who to call to ask for advice.
Why is this so?
Stress is a universal defense mechanism aimed at only one thing - SURVIVAL. That is, when exposed to an extreme factor, certain reactions are activated that help us adapt to new conditions and save life.
My head of the biochemistry department liked to give the example of a man and a crocodile: a crocodile rushed at you (stress? What else), in order to survive, you need an action hormone - adrenaline, which activates the cardiovascular system and gives an impulse to action.
Or, for example, have you ever noticed that just before you get sick with an acute respiratory infection, you feel great? In the evening you mop the floors, try on outfits, have a ton of plans, your spirits are high, and in the morning you wake up all broken and with a runny nose. The virus entered the body the day before: the immune, endocrine and other systems mobilized, strained, accelerated, but there was not enough power, they could not cope - and now there is a cold.
Sometimes we managed. Well, here we won’t notice anything, the virus will die in the cradle, and the disease will pass by.
The second stage is Adaptation or resistance.
This is where the body works with triple strength, reserves are activated and reserves are spent. The mother adapts to the new sleepless regime, watches the baby, and her need for rest and food decreases. A sick baby (he is also stressed) has a rise in body temperature. Leukocytes fight to the death. Metabolic processes are accelerated and toxins are neutralized.
The same thing happens to students during the session: they don’t sleep, don’t eat, have a lot of coffee and cigarettes. At the same time, they remember large amounts of information.
BUT: if the stressor is too strong (the harmful microorganism turned out to be stronger than the immune system) or its effect is too long (one child recovered, but the second fell ill; she failed the exams and needs to be retaken, the audit at work has been going on for the second month), then the body’s reserves are gradually exhausted and the following occurs:
Third stage – Exhaustion
The body is exhausted. The student can no longer learn a single line and gives up.
Mom gets sick herself. Complications develop.
What's going on inside?
- Increased mass in the adrenal glands (the place where stress hormones are produced, particularly cortisol and adrenaline)
- The immune defense organs decrease in size, incl. thymus.
- On the mucous membrane gastrointestinal tract Ulcers and erosions appear.
Let's decipher Selye's message:
- Increased synthesis of the stress hormone - cortisol
The main effect of cortisol: - increasing the synthesis of glucose (a source of fast energy) from non-carbohydrate sources (amino acids). That is, where does the energy come from? It is taken from strategic reserves - from proteins (which are actually needed for the construction of tissues and organs).
The synthesis of adrenaline increases, which enhances catabolism (tissue breakdown), increases arterial pressure, promotes the breakdown of fats - all for the same purpose - to obtain energy. In addition, it narrows blood vessels, which leads to insufficient blood supply to tissues.
- Immunodeficiency
The body's resistance to infections drops sharply. Perhaps you have noticed that you often get sick just before important events (weddings, competitions, performances at a matinee). The same stress.
- Ulcers and gastritis.
As a result of deterioration of blood supply to the mucous membranes. It is understood that in times of danger there is no time to dig and there is no need to waste energy there.
Why do we need stress? It’s simple - as a result of the “shake-up,” we adapt to new environmental conditions, and the body’s resistance increases.
In addition, sleep has an anti-stress effect.
- Provide for yourself good nutrition. Be sure to take enough protein (milk, dairy products, meat, fish, legumes, cauliflower, green pea and so on).
- Avoid low-fat foods.
- Take antioxidants (regular Aevit 1 tablet x 3 times a day or fish oil)
- To protect against infections and help the immune system: take vitamin C (rose hips, berries, pine needles or ascorutin).
- Use aromatic oils with an antiseptic effect (for example, tea tree or eucalyptus oil externally or 2 drops on a piece of bread daily). Eucalyptus enhances the function of the ciliated epithelium respiratory tract, which clears the airways. Tea tree oil is considered one of the most effective natural antibiotics. Use essential oils with a relaxing effect - for example, lavender - it is suitable for almost everyone, even small children.
- To protect the stomach mucosa, eat mucous porridge and flax seeds. Chamomile tea. A decoction of coltsfoot and yarrow leaves.
- To shift attention and energy, and remove toxins, daily 30-minute physical activity is required. The intensity should be enough to make you sweat.
Let's summarize:
Stress is complex defensive reactions, arising in response to any extreme impact.
Having successfully survived stress, we become stronger and more resilient.
Knowing the mechanisms of stress and applying simple rules before and during important events, as well as in difficult periods, we get the opportunity to minimize Negative consequences and improve quality of life.
Take care of yourself and don't be afraid of anything.
To what extent have you mastered the art of stress management? Can you increase it by 100%? Against a backdrop of complete health, prosperity and peace? Everything is in your hands, it is not as difficult as it seems. You can use the following tactics: “When he says, “You look tired,” you respond, “I knew you didn’t like me anymore.” And if he says: “It seems the meat is under-salted,” this gives you the right to say: “You always try to humiliate me.” »
Just tense your muscles. Frown your brows. Clench your teeth. Squeeze chest so that breathing becomes hard work. In principle, this is enough. If desired, you can add hands, thigh muscles, and so on.
Effect: Your experiences, feelings and thoughts immediately become an order of magnitude more catastrophic.
2. Don't move
Do sedentary work all day and spend the rest of the time watching TV.
Why do we need stress?
Why do people artificially increase their stress when there is enough of it in life without our efforts? Because the state of stress allows us to solve some problems or, as psychologists would say, provides “secondary benefit.” In particular, stress:
Gives an adrenaline jolt and invigorates when there is not enough risk in life;
Makes you feel important significant person who is always busy and always doesn't have time;
Allows you to avoid intimacy and maintain distance: when a person is afraid of relationships, he can become immersed in important work;
Allows you to avoid responsibility (“I don’t have time to solve this problem, I’m very busy”);
Allows you to demand obedience from others, like in a state under martial law.
Effect: Within a few days of immobile life, stress will increase greatly. You will begin to think about troubles, from which movements previously distracted you.
3. Natural pharmacology
Nicotine, caffeine, sugar - constantly and in increasing quantities. You can also alternate coffee with alcohol.
Effect: You will soon learn how much your well-being depends on biochemistry. Even the most legal and ordinary " psychotropic drugs" V large quantities disrupt the natural mechanisms of wakefulness and relaxation.
4. Listen to your body
Please pay close attention on your body. Do you have any strange sensations in your left hand? And in the stomach - are there any almost imperceptible vibrations and tingling sensations? Isn't this suspicious?
Effect: You will definitely find strange sensations and can fantasize about your unknown illnesses. This technique is especially effective when combined with the study of medical literature.
Worry regularly about things you can't control. Think for half an hour a day about epidemics, hurricanes, cooling of the planet and similar global matters.
Effect: Feeling of helplessness, anxiety, tension.
6. What do I need to be happy?
Look at your life from the point of view: what am I missing? You can go over in your mind acquaintances who have succeeded in something or biographies of celebrities. It is also useful to look through catalogs and find things there that you are not able to buy because of their high prices.
Effect: If you look at life this way, you will always have a reason to feel unhappy.
7. Haste
Try to constantly rush. Even on vacation or playing with a child.
Effect: All things in your life will be done superficially and will completely cease to bring satisfaction.
8. Let's do it later
Systematically put off all matters and decisions until later.
Effect: It supports constant feeling guilt, and after a while helplessness will appear in front of the overwhelming mountain of accumulated problems.
9. Achieve complete excellence
Focus on the highest standards and curse yourself for the slightest shadow of failure or imperfection.
Effect: Since perfection is virtually unattainable, you are guaranteed to experience a constant feeling of chronic failure.
10. Nothing funny
Eliminate humor and laughter from your life.
Effect: Stress will immediately increase because it does not combine well with humor. After all, stress is a serious matter.
These, of course, are not all tactics for increasing your stress out of the blue. There are thousands of them. Maybe you are already successfully using some of them? Or do you have other favorite and original techniques? It's important to see them. When you understand the ways in which you are increasing your stress, it becomes easier to control it. Because you gain the freedom to use them or abandon them.
Stress for two
Increasing stress can be successfully dealt with in tandem with a loved one. For example, here are a few simple recipes:
- Let him change
Make it your goal to change the other person.
Effect: The task is unsolvable, and your loved one, when they want to change him, begins to resist. Then any joint activity: sex, dinner or a walk to the supermarket becomes a merciless and fruitless battle.
- Stress in bed.
Never tell your loved one what you like in sex and what you don’t.
Effect: This ensures constant dissatisfaction with sex, plus gives the right to be chronically offended by misunderstanding and insensitivity on the part of a loved one.
— Mind reading
When he says, “You look tired,” you reply, “I knew you didn’t like me anymore.” And if he says: “It seems the meat is under-salted,” this gives you the right to say: “You always try to humiliate me.”
Effect: With the help of a skillful interpretation of the secret thoughts of your loved one, you will find a reason for offense in every most innocent of his remarks. If you also include amateur psychology here (“This is unconscious aggression and an unresolved Oedipus complex speaking in you”), any word or action of your partner will increase stress, and he will never be able to justify himself.
- Without closing your mouth
Try to talk non-stop the entire time you are with your loved one, filling any pause with words.
Effect: Typical man will quickly feel overload - he is generally only able to listen carefully for 10-15 seconds. Therefore, he will most likely withdraw into himself, and you have the right to complain that you are not listened to or understood.
- Be silent, hide and conceal...
Do not talk to your loved one about unpleasant things: about what you don’t like about life together, or about what you would like, but you are not getting from him.
Effect: This technique does not give an immediate effect, but it leaves behind very persistent stress, and for many years. If you do not tell your loved one about your disappointments, dissatisfaction and problems, stress constantly and invisibly increases its tension. Which can end in an explosion - or in complete cooling and disappointment.
Mikhail Zavalov
Before we can understand survival and learn how to survive, it is helpful to first know a little about stress (pressure). Stress is not some kind of disease that can be cured and eliminated forever. Stress is a condition that we all experience often. Stress can also be described as our reaction to pressure. And pressure on us reveals exactly how we respond physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually to difficult life situations.
Why do we need stress?
It should be noted that stress has many positive benefits. Stress gives us problems - and this allows us to learn about ourselves, about our values and about our lives. Stress shows us how we are able to cope with pressure. This is a kind of test of our adaptability and flexibility. Stress motivates us to do whatever it takes to solve a problem. In addition, stress can also be a great indicator of how much meaning we attach to an event - in other words, stress highlights what is important to us.
We should have some amount of stress in our lives, but too much stress can be very bad for us. Stress is good, but not too much of it. Too much stress has a profound effect on both people and organizations. Too much stress leads to disaster, and disasters always give us unpleasant tension that we try to escape from.
Even minor factors can lead to serious disorders if they all occur too close together. The body's resistance to stress decreases and, ultimately, a state of weakness occurs.
Common Signs of Excessive Stress
You can find them in yourself and in your loved ones or friends when you are faced with too much stress:
- Difficulty making decisions
- Outbursts of anger
- Oblivion
- Low energy level
- Prone to mistakes
- Constant worry
- Isolation from friends or society
- Thoughts about death or suicide
- Avoidance of responsibility
- Carelessness
As you have seen, stress can not only be creative, but also extremely destructive. It can promote or hinder your progress, move you forward or stop you, make your life meaningful or meaningless. can inspire you to successfully perform tasks at your peak performance, as well as survive in different environments. On the other hand, pressure can cause you to panic and forget everything you have been taught.
Stress and Survival: Keys
Almost any event and situation can lead to stress and, like all challenges, events do not always come one at a time. Often, they happen simultaneously. These events in themselves are not stress, but they can cause it and are therefore called “stimulants.” Once our body recognizes the presence of a stressor, it begins to act to protect itself.
In response to a stressor, the body prepares to “fight or flight.” Our brain sends an internal SOS signal throughout the body. The body begins to use its “fuel” (fats and sugars) to quickly provide the body with energy; breathing quickens to deliver more oxygen to the blood; muscle tension increases to prepare for action; blood clotting mechanisms are activated to reduce possible bleeding from wounds; your senses are heightened - your hearing becomes more sensitive, your smell becomes sharper, etc., so you are more aware of your surroundings; finally, the pulse and blood pressure increase to ensure blood flow to the muscles. All these defense mechanisms allow you to cope potential danger; however, a person cannot maintain this level of vigilance indefinitely.
The main key to your survival is your ability to manage what you are faced with. Only you can control this. You must work with stress, but not allow yourself to work on it.
By anticipating stress and unpleasant situations and developing strategies to deal with them, you can effectively manage stress when it actually occurs.
How do you react to stress and are you able to cope with it?
Diabetes. Diseases of the cardiovascular system. Depression. All this is usually associated with the consequences of stress. But while stress can make you sick, it can also be good for you. It is part of important cognitive and physiological functions that go beyond simply surviving a fight-or-flight situation.
But the question is how can we turn stress to our advantage? We need to keep it at a level that allows us to benefit from it without harming our health.
Why do we need stress?
Let's get one thing straight: stress is not only inevitable, but it is a necessary aspect of life. Stress, by definition, is caused by an unfavorable situation or condition. This is how your body lets you know that you need to find a way out and solve the problem.
Here classic example: You are crossing the road at a busy intersection and suddenly realize that a bus weighing seven tons is rushing straight towards you. You need to escape quickly. Right now.
In this situation, you experience what experts call an acute stress response. Your body is flooded with catecholamines and glucocorticoids, two molecular classes that include the well-known "fight and flight" hormones such as epinephrine (also known as adrenaline) and cortisone. These hormones have a strong and immediate effect on your physiological state: Your breathing quickens and your heart beats faster, supplying more oxygen to the organs of your body. Your pupils dilate, allowing you to see your surroundings better. You have enough energy to instantly move your muscles.
"At a basic level, stress aids adaptation and is necessary for survival.", explains neuroimmunophysiologist Monica Fleshner in an interview. Animals that lack a stress response are at greater risk of getting hurt or dying when faced with dangerous or threatening situations. Situations that would cause them to change their behavior for the purpose of self-preservation. Fleshner gives an example :
You might think this is good. Yes, I need stress in order to have time to jump out from under a train or overtake other tourists when a bear is chasing us. But such situations are rare - so how much stress is really necessary? You are right - the threats we face every day are usually far from a matter of life and death. But your body's stress response can benefit you for more than just when you need to jump in front of a speeding bus. In small doses, stress can be beneficial from a physiological and cognitive perspective.
Good stress and bad stress
Fleshner says that in small doses acute reaction stress "really provokes a great priming effect that strengthens your immune system. It allows you to respond to illness faster and more effectively." Moderate stress in work environment may even promote a state of physiological and psychological uplift, helping you focus on completing a project before deadlines, for example by improving your memory. It has been proven that patients who experienced moderate stress before surgery recovered much faster than those who experienced mild or severe stress. After all, stress is much more to your body than just an emergency response system.
The trick is to ensure that your body is able to regulate the effects of stress in order to benefit from it. When stress becomes excessive—whether due to intensity, duration, or all three—it begins to take a toll on your physical and mental health. Examples of this are post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and chronic stress. We'll talk about the latter because it's a form of stress that most of us deal with on a daily basis.
Chronic stress is the result of the stress you experience on a daily basis becoming so overwhelming that its effects on you are no longer beneficial and they begin to negatively affect your mind and body. Fleshner calls it " turning point"Using mice as an example, she says that if you systematically create stressful situations for them, you will follow a number of physiological changes:
In humans, when stress passes the “tipping point,” the risk of depression, diabetes, upper respiratory infections, autoimmune diseases, and even a decrease in your body’s ability to recover from damage increases. This week in the journal "Proceedings" National Academy Sciences" published a study where researchers from Carnegie Mellon University demonstrated that chronic stress weakens the body's ability to regulate cortisol levels (as you remember, cortisol is one of the hormones that is released into the body in a stressful situation). This, in turn, has a direct impact on your body's ability to mount an immune response, making you more vulnerable to disease and infection.
How to avoid reaching the “tipping point”
The most difficult question is how to avoid crossing the line that separates good stress from bad. There are two ways to achieve this.
In the first case, you need to learn to cope with the stress that you are already experiencing. There are many ways to do this. One is to learn to recognize and avoid daily situations that cause tension, embarrassment and anxiety. The source of stress can be located in a person (friend, family member, co-worker), place (supermarket on a Friday night) and even time (rush hour).
Relaxation techniques such as meditation and deep breathing, also relieve symptoms of chronic stress.
Even this simple thing, how to tell yourself that stress can be an advantage and can have beneficial physical and psychological effects. This may sound strange and implausible, but latest research showed that people who are trained to believe that feeling stressed before an exam or performance can improve their performance not only outperform those who don't believe so. They do demonstrate improvements in physiological parameters, including beneficial heart function and decreased vascular resistance.
Second and probably The best way, improve your ability to benefit from stress, is a set of exercises that you will have to do. It is best if it is regular exercise.
Fleschner explains:
The better your body copes with stress, the easier it is for you to function when you're in a stressful situation: jumping out of a car, trying to cope with a university load, or thinking about work deadlines. The main benefit of all this is that through exercise you are actually training your body to respond to stress in a timely and appropriate manner. Just look at this guy running. Does she seem depressed due to stress? Of course not.
“If you don't train your stress response, not only are you more likely to trigger it over something completely minor, you'll have a much harder time dealing with it.”
And remember: failure to manage your stress response leads to chronic stress in the first place. Train your body to regulate stress and you can use your body's natural responses to the challenges life brings to your full advantage.
Let's return again to the processes occurring in the human body to understand the psychology of stress and find out Why does a person need stress?.
The main human instinct, located in the hypothalamus, is responsible for survival. That is, if a person finds himself in a situation similar to the one that ended badly for him, or in a new, completely unfamiliar environment, the brain immediately builds a defense. During the occurrence of a traumatic situation, as a result of a person’s reaction to the situation, the body produces substances that help overcome it.
We previously examined the physical aspect of stressful circumstances. Why is stress needed from a physiological point of view? For physical development. Ran from wild beast— he pumped up his leg muscles and broke the tiger’s neck, just like he worked out in the gym. But in conditions modern society purely physical reaction will not always be adequate. Just as relieving stress using purely physiological methods, such as running, jumping, etc., will not always be effective.
What other benefits are there from stress?
It turns out that stress is even more important for mental development than for physical development. It’s not for nothing that our brain consumes 20% of the body’s total energy, despite the fact that by weight it occupies only about 3 percent of the total mass. Most often, when some unpleasant or unusual story happens to a person, what is required of him is not the stupid “run away or win”, but a sound assessment and adequate behavior.
The substances the brain needs to solve a problem are always produced in excess, so it is quite reasonable physical activity. But you shouldn’t dwell on this, when emotions subside a little, you need to think about what can be done to ensure that such situations do not happen again and again and stress does not interfere with life.
Ask yourself questions: “Why did this situation happen to me? What thoughts or actions could I have provoked her? How can I solve this problem? What can I do to prevent this from happening again? Even if you don’t find all the answers right away, such exercises are very useful for the brain. By solving problems to overcome various psychotraumatic situations, a person develops mentally and intellectually.
For some people, the reaction to stress is so different from the usual that they simply fall into a stupor, to the point of being unable to control not only their thoughts, but also their body. What could such a reaction indicate? About the fact that in the human subconscious there are very strong fears. They block the possibility of assessing the situation. The human brain is so afraid of something that it forbids itself to even think about it. Here, overcoming stress must begin by working on your fears.
When you stub your finger, it hurts. For what? Then, so that you pay attention to it and begin to treat it. If something happened to you that makes your soul “ache,” this is a sign that not all is well in this area of your psyche. For example, stress after a quarrel with your boss may indicate that you do not know how to properly build relationships in society, or do not have the right attitude towards your employer, or you have excessive demands on people, or... (a finger can be bruised, pinched, burned, cut, freeze, pierce, etc.). You just need to find the reason and fix it.
Why does a person need stress?
Unfortunately, most people view stress not as a guide to development, but as a nuisance that needs to be gotten rid of as quickly as possible. It is advisable to simply “remove” her from your life and click on the “Delete” button. Is it possible? With sufficient training, this is quite possible, but the trouble is that if a person is given the opportunity to change, and he refuses to use this opportunity, they begin to repeat themselves. Until he starts thinking and acting.
After all, science has proven that if any Living being place in ideal conditions, it begins to enjoy life to the fullest and stops developing, gradually begins to degrade, and, in the end, it dies, not itself, but its descendants. So it makes sense to leave empty dreams of a stress-free life and learn how to stressful situations. He is perfectly suited for this.
