Stress and Health Essay
Stress is the state of being worried, run-down or overwhelmed by difficulties experienced in the modern daily lives. Health is the state of being free from any physical or psychological disease or malfunction. When one is stressed therefore, it has direct effects on the individual’s health as the main impact of stress is the distortion of the psychological and physical state. Stress in most cases is emotional and has evident symptoms so much as many human beings fail to admit that they are under stress. This serves the reason as to why many people in the modern generation die of illnesses caused by stress as compared to the generation before us who lived longer. Even though stress is well known for the damage that it causes to people’s health, at some point it appears helpful to the human body systems (Charleston & Nathan, 2012, p. 23-27).
Situations as such are during educational examinations where stress may help in fastening one’s thinking capacity and probably becoming more creative or when trying to meet work deadlines, making one more productive at place of work. However, many are the cases where stress causes body illnesses which leads to early deaths and sequentially affecting the nation at large when many citizens die of this chronic issue, stress. These illnesses include heart diseases, blood pressure and poor immune system amongst many more. This means that increase in stress is most likely going to increase health problems to people and may even lead to death. Research has shown that many are the people from the current generation die of problems that were initially caused by chronic stress (American Psychological Association, 2015).
Whenever the body experiences stress, some hormones are released to take care of the situation. These hormones are the reason as to why people experience blood pressure as they raise it, increase the rate at which the heart beats and raise the levels of blood sugars. These are the changes that make short term stress helpful, as they help one increase the strength and speed at which they act to overcome the issue at hand. Additionally, rapid and extended change in the above factors, may lead to dangerous illnesses. These changes are also the cause of digestive illnesses, fertility problems and a weak immune system. They may also go as far as causing viral infections such as common cold or the flu, depression, anxiety, lack of sleep and bad headaches (Natural Cancer Institute, n.d). Another main and alarming damage that stress may cause is the mental disorder. Apart from the illnesses highlighted above, stress in most cases serves responsible for mental illnesses to many patients. A mentally ill individual may not be productive as expected and is at some point of no use to the society. These are the dangers that people expose themselves to when they overwork, overthink and subject themselves to any other form of stress. At all cost therefore, human beings need to identify when they are under stress conditions and know how to deal with the situations so as to overcome them. People can choose to live long, which can be achieved by simply controlling any stress that comes their way in the course of daily activities (Fink, 2009, p. 3-5).
Research also shows that the main reason why many people suffer stress is the mental and emotional development. Many people engage their brains and emotions in issues of their daily lives, not knowing that when this is overdone, it may lead disastrous conditions that trigger stress related illnesses. Long working hours serves as the main cause of stress amongst many. This is because some of the duties many people undertake on daily basis are stressful and involve engagement of the brain. Many people therefore cause stress unto themselves, sometimes unknowingly.
Others go ahead in overthinking on job tasks even when not in their places of work. This means they even add working hours to themselves unaware of the dangers they are exposing themselves to. People do this as they worry about the future. Everyone wants a promising future and does their best in fighting for it. They forget that they may fail to even live to see the future they fight and struggle for depending on the way they do it. It is good to express concern for the future but with limits so as to avoid chronic stress which will have to mess up with the same future.
This is all linked up by the excessive anxiety about work and is a major cause for alarm across the world. Blame at some point is also on employers as they cause stress to their employees. This makes the employee ever stressed about how to increase their productivity and to cope with upcoming issues in job affairs. It is the main reason people extend work emotions and thoughts to even outside working hours which are long already. The way the employers treat these employees also affects their emotions and may cause stress and in the end bring about stress related illnesses (National Cancer Institute, 2012). All the work pressure comes in due to competition in various fields. People are said not know how to cope with competition especially in the business field. They wrongly extend emotionally and mentally into how they will stand out as the best with competition perfection. This makes them mentally busy day and night which is harmful to their body systems.
Everyone wants to integrate work and build up their family and social lives. This aspect may bring about diseases such as blood pressure, depression and the likes (Dewe et al., 2012, p. 11-17). Another aspect of life is the struggle in relationships and marriages. Many people end up involving themselves in marriages that take away their happiness for the rest of their lives. This in many cases happens unknowingly due to haste in choosing partners which leads to settling with the wrong people at the end of it. The stress on how to find solutions has great effect as it builds mental and emotional disturbance. Continuation of such intense stress may also lead to various stress related illnesses. It is therefore good to evaluate oneself before settling down. This way one is able to realize the kind of people they can settle with. It helps in later identifying the right people and engaging themselves in marriages for better and happier lives (Griffin, n.d).
The condition of lack of sleep is brought about by stress and may be harmful as it can lead to stress related illnesses. When one spends sleepless nights, the most probable situation is that the brain is much engaged in thinking of certain issues, solutions or even making plans. If this continues for a long time therefore, it may lead to cause of long term headaches and depression (Siegel, 2008). This condition therefore must be avoided at all cost by running away from stress causing events for it proves to be much dangerous to the health of human beings. It is one of the surest symptoms of stress and it should be attended to with immediate effect to avoid developments of next stages. Obesity is also as a result of stress. When people are under stress they tend to consume a lot of junk food and eventually end up suffering from obesity.
When this is identified therefore, the victim needs to handle their stress levels carefully and strive to reduce them. These two effects of stress end up leading to heart diseases. At this stage, it becomes a hustle in getting treatment for a condition that would have simply been avoided by refraining from any stress related situation (Charleston & Nathan, 2012, p. 47-53). Another disease that may come along with the effects of stress is cancer. Not much research has been done about cancer, but it has been proven that when many people are under stress, they tend to take alcohol and smoke cigarette at a high rate. Alcohol and cigarette lead to cancer development in parts of the human body (American Psychological Association, 2015). This therefore makes cancer and heart diseases some of the illnesses that come along with stress. To fight these diseases, it begins with prevention from involving oneself with stress related situations. Otherwise, it becomes very much difficult and expensive to treat these diseases.
In conclusion, stress is identified as the worst form of injustice an individual would ever do to themselves. Stress related problems are bad news that no one would wish to be associated with. It is easier to prevent one-self from the diseases brought about by stress as compared to trying to cure them. Efforts against causes of stress are therefore worth making in everyone’s daily life. All the same, not all changes triggered by stress happen to be negative. Some changes are positive depending on how far the stress extends. Stress that is short term positively affects the victim in that it helps to improve their speed in thinking and their level of creativity. On the other hand, long term stress brings about increased blood pressure and sugars among many other conditions, which later mature up to diseases. Physical exercise is part of the recommendations from the doctors to avoid any stress related problems amongst many such as enough sleep. It is said that a normal human being should sleep for around seven to eight hours.
References
- American Psychological Association. 2015, Understanding Chronic Stress. [Online] Available at < http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/understanding-chronic-stress.aspx> [Accessed 20 Apr 2015].
- Charleston, E. A. & Nathan, R. G. 2012, Stress Management: A Comprehensive Guide to Wellness. New York, Ballantine Books.
Dewe, P. O’Driscoll, M. & Cooper, C. 2010, Coping with Work Stress. West Sussex, Wiley & Sons. - Fink, G. 2009, Stress Science Neuroendocrinology. Burlington, Elsevier Science.
- Griffin, M. n.d, 10 Health Problems Related to Stress That You Can Fix. [Online] Available at
- Mayo Clinic Staff. n.d, Stress Management. [Online] Available at
- National Cancer Institute. 2012, Psychological Stress and Cancer. [Online] Available at < http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/coping/feelings/stress-fact-sheet > [Accessed 20 Apr 2015].
- Siegel, S. 2008, Stress and Health. [Online] Available at
