The Stress Reaction: What is it?
What we commonly refer to as "stress" begins with perception: we see, foresee or experience danger or significant change in our situation, which the brain interprets as danger.
- Our bodies immediately go into fight/flight mode: adrenalin floods through us, the eyes become alert and active, hearing sharpens, our heart rate increases, blood pressure goes up, and the digestive system closes. We focus on the danger, to such a point that other things go unnoticed.
- In most cases there is no fight that would resolve the situation and there is no flight because we cannot flee financial problems, illness, bad news, grief or relationship problems.
- Our bodies continue on in a heightened state of alert, still prepared to fight or flee, with periodic increases and decreases of intensity.
- Within a few days the reaction, for most people, becomes"normal" and we put it down as having a "worry". This is a signal that the stressor now appears as a reality on our mental screen. Each time we focus on that reality in our mind the stress reaction intensifies like a hurricane feeding on warm water. The brain does not register the difference between a real danger and a mentally-perceived danger and so the reaction to a "worry" is the same as if the event were actually happening. That is why we cry, get angry and become emotionally draining when watching movies and intense athletic events.
- Since the body is not intended to be in the fight/flight mode for more than a few hours we soon begin to experience changes in appetite, mood swings, energy swings, fatigue, a vague sense of unease and periods of hyperactivity or depression.
- Relief and escape begin to be sought after.
- Keeping to the schedule becomes more difficult. We skip meals, have trouble sleeping or go off the regular sleep schedule. We overdo things and at other times skip chores or tasks. Life begins to pile up and a sense of being overwhelmed sometimes sets in.
- We become more difficult to live with and to work with. It takes effort to be calm yet alert, to focus on the tasks at hand and to make good decisions.
- Little tasks seem big and minor irritations seem major. People begin to get on our nerves.
- We have become stressed! This happens not because of events or the possibility of terrible events happening but because of our perception and reaction to events and possibilities. Hurricanes are a good example. Widespread stress rightly sets in for residents in the path of these storms when the warning is given. The stress begins with the warning, not with the beginning of the actual storm that may have formed many hours or days before the alert.
A little bit of stress is a good thing. Adrenalin and dopamine make us energetic and alert. Athletes and executives, right along with everyone else recognize that having a keen eye and being mentally alert make for a better performance. Too much stress makes a person hyperactive. Prolonged stress becomes a health threat and eventually leaves a person exhausted and set up to burn out. So the line is drawn between a little bit of stress as a good thing and too much of a good thing. Nobody can draw that line for anyone else.
Where do you draw your line?
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