The concept of “stress” has become very firmly established in everyday life in recent decades. The term itself refers to emotional dysfunction and tension, which is always accompanied by a negative mood. It came to us from medieval England, where “distress” meant grief or need.
Stress is the body’s ability to adapt to changing living conditions. In the modern rhythm of life, conditions change not only every day, but also every hour. Therefore, we can say with confidence that stressful situations have become commonplace.
By stress we mean a feeling of dissatisfaction, bitterness of loss or seasonal blues, but despite the general symptoms, this phenomenon has several types, subtypes, stages of development and phases. Let's take a closer look at them.
Stages of stress in psychology
Whatever the cause of stress, different organisms react to all kinds of influencing factors (stressors) in the same way. Doctors and psychologists, analyzing the condition of people, animals and even plants, came to the conclusion that there are two models of behavior of a living organism that is subject to a shocking effect:
- active, encouraging to fight for a return to normal life, adapting to new conditions;
- passive, allowing you to ignore the difficulty that has arisen, run away from searching for a solution, and come to terms with new circumstances.
Important! The path that a living organism takes depends not only on heredity and its own beliefs, but also on the amount of adaptive energy in the body.
Hans Selye, a Viennese-born medical scientist who carefully studies the pathologies of the human body, was one of the first to draw attention to the meaning of stress and its nature. It was he who revealed the concept of adaptive energy, which, in his opinion, is an irreplaceable resource of any organism, a source of strength that can make it possible to withstand stress. Selye believed that at the moment when adaptive energy runs out, old age and death occur. He also described three stages of stress, which have a certain order of occurrence:
- Anxiety;
- Resistance;
- Exhaustion.
Hans Selye
He experimentally proved that any animal exposed to prolonged stress necessarily goes through these three phases of stress.
Inevitably, alternating phases of stress have different durations. The same factor influencing different objects triggered the formation of stages of response reactions differing in duration. The physiology of the increase in physical stress is an individual characteristic that directly depends on the amount of accumulated adaptive energy. The psychological state of the individual also influences how long the anxiety will last and how soon the transition to the third stage may occur.
Conductors of the third phase
What system is this and why didn’t Hans Selye know about it?
– We are talking about the endogenous opioid system (EOS), which was not studied in detail at the time of the great stress researcher. In general, it turned out to be quite interesting: in 1973, receptors that bind to opiates were discovered, and substances produced in the body itself (endogenous morphines) were discovered two years later.
They are commonly referred to colloquially as endorphins, although the correct name is opioid peptides. This is a fairly large group of compounds, including endorphins, enkephalins, dynorphins, etc.
Question answer
How to recognize stress?
What role do opioid peptides play in stress?
– In short, they play a dominant role in the third stage of stress, just as adrenaline and norepinephrine are the “main conductors” in the first stage, and adrenal hormones in the second.
Opioid peptides put the body into hypobiosis, that is, a mode of maximum energy saving: breathing becomes less frequent, heart rate decreases, blood pressure drops, temperature drops, etc. In a word, phenomena occur that are in many ways similar to lethargy.
It is well known that under stress a person perceives pain weaker, for example, a seriously wounded soldier can run to attack, etc. This phenomenon, called stress analgesia, is also due to the action of opioid peptides.
Causes and therapy
Stages of conflict - a brief description of the main stages in psychology
The importance of stress in everyone’s life is difficult to overestimate – it inevitably leaves a scar on your mental or physical health. The cause, or stressor, can be either negative information or positive information, which carries a large emotional load on the object.
G. Selye gave in his book a vivid example of a situation in which positive information, becoming a stressor, can kill a person if he received it at a time when his irreplaceable supply of adaptive energy has dried up. As an object, he proposes to consider a woman who saw off her only son to war. Having received the tragic news that he died in battle, the mother spends a huge amount of energy, first on anxiety associated with the pain of loss, then on struggling with heartbreaking feelings. She lives for many more years, keeping the memory of her son alive. But, if after a certain number of years it turns out that the funeral came to her by mistake, her child is alive, and one day he opens the door and enters the house, the woman may lose consciousness from stress, already based on positive emotions. A strong shock, catching her at an advanced age, can provoke a heart attack and, as a result, death. An exhausted body will not find the strength to adapt, in which case the stage of exhaustion will begin.
The body itself at the cellular level is also capable of experiencing stress. On a daily basis, a person may encounter a stage of anxiety when, for example, he is forced to be outside in extremely low temperatures. The first stage of the muscle is met with tone and trembling, after which the body constricts, as a result of which the vessels of the extremities narrow, the skin significantly reduces heat loss, and the vital organs maintain the desired temperature and are provided with the necessary volume of oxygen due to active blood circulation. This, like the second phase of stress development, is a vivid example of resistance.
Exposure to low temperatures
Attention! If you know exactly at what stage stress begins, you can take timely measures to prevent its development in order to preserve adaptive energy.
Therapy that begins at the first stage of development will be the most effective, even if it is limited to the proper organization of leisure time, than heavy drug assistance, after the resistance phase mechanism has been launched.
Relaxation is the main direction that psychologists recommend starting with for those who are experiencing the first stage of stress. It is important to get rid of muscle tone if it occurs as a result of nervous strain. In this case, a professional massage therapist will help. In the complex, you should not neglect a change of scenery. However, G. Selye argued that in almost all cases occupational therapy can help cope with even the most severe stress. When a person manages to become useful and engage in creative activities, he switches from the confusion syndrome and concentrates on business, saving even his soul from a serious illness.
Methods for increasing stress resistance
Low physiological resistance to stress can be corrected. It is very important to teach people how to deal with nerves correctly. We cannot completely protect ourselves from stressors, but we can adjust our behavior and our attitude towards them.
Low physiological resistance to stress is increased through social adaptation. This process represents the active adaptation of the individual to the society around him. Training is provided in proper communication and self-presentation. The process involves working on understanding oneself as a full-fledged member of society, one’s status, and behavior. It provides for the organization of joint activities, the adoption of the norms and values of the society in which the person is located, without infringing on one’s interests.
Neutralization methods
The next stage is the identification of adaptive potential and the ability to apply it. Adaptation potential is completely related to the previous stage. External stressors significantly reduce it. When encountering a potentially dangerous stressor in such a state, maladjustment may occur, which will lead to disastrous consequences. Therefore, it is very important to improve your health and provide your body with quality rest and nutrition.
Three stages of stress
Types of stress in psychology - their characteristics and solutions
Conducting laboratory studies on rats, the scientist was able to conclude that the stages of stress development are identical for absolutely all organisms and do not depend on the type of stressor. They can be cold, heat, an injected poison or hormone, trauma (the organisms reacted with the same changes in the internal organs). This phenomenon was called the “general adaptive syndrome”; it was it that was analyzed in theory, then studied in detail in practice before it could be characterized by three stages of stress in psychology.
Alarm stage
A short phase of anxiety is characteristic of people with high stress tolerance. An anxious state does not help solve the problem, does not allow you to concentrate on finding a way out of a difficult situation, and can provoke panic.
Anxiety - the first phase
Stage of resistance (resistance)
After probable confusion or anxiety of the organs (depending on the type of stress), a stage comes at which the body begins to resist. This is possible if the consequences of the stressor are compatible with adaptation.
Exhaustion stage
With prolonged resistance, the reserves of adaptive energy are significantly depleted; after its depletion, according to research, anxiety sets in again, but it already has the definition of an irreversible reaction and leads to death.
Additional Information. Bleeding, as an alarming reaction of the body to injury, is replaced by the formation of platelets, which are required to stop blood loss (resistance). As a result of a long struggle, the body may lose a lot of blood, be unable to save itself, become exhausted and die.
Neurochemical happiness
But the same endorphins that play such a significant role in stress are commonly called happiness hormones. Is there a contradiction here?
Article on the topic
Goodbye fatigue! How to relieve chronic tension - There is no contradiction, since endorphins released during stress give a person a state of euphoria. People bungee jump, get into parkour and other extreme sports precisely for this reason.
They usually say that this is all done in pursuit of adrenaline.
– God forbid from adrenaline “joy”! Have you seen a mouse on adrenaline? Eyes bulging, fur standing on end, nose bleeding - a pitiful sight. No one would try for such dubious “pleasure”. Extreme athletes perform their stunts not for the sake of adrenaline, but for the sake of endogenous opioid peptides that are produced after the adrenaline phase.
So, the problem of all times and peoples has been solved: activate EOS and you will be happy?
– In life, not everything is so simple. There was a time when dopamine, which, by the way, is not a hormone at all, but a neurotransmitter, claimed the role of the “hormone of happiness.” But studies have shown that a deficiency of dopamine manifests itself in parkinsonism, and an excess leads to schizophrenia. After dopamine was debunked, the vacancy of the “happiness hormone” was filled by serotonin. But not everything is clear with it either: this substance is responsible for an adequate perception of reality, and if something goes wrong with it, pseudohallucinations occur. EOS also has its own specifics.
Opiates (including endogenous ones) break the cycles of normal functioning of the body; they block signals of trouble that arise in the central nervous system. It is not without reason that they say that a drug addict’s happiness lies in ignorance, since he does not notice the discrepancy between what is desired and what is actual. Moreover, a drug addict kills his immune system, since there are opioid receptors even on white blood cells, and drug use leads to a breakdown of this part of the immune system.
Nowadays it is often said that drug addicts develop AIDS due to HIV infection through careless use of syringes. But drug addicts don’t even need HIV to develop immunodeficiency; they boost their immunity by directly using drugs.
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Types and symptoms of stress
How to recover from stress and gain strength for women and men
Although it was recognized that there is no unambiguous static definition of the term “stress”, nevertheless, the condition itself is usually divided into two types:
- Eustress;
- distress.
Eustress is the result of emotional upsurge. It is often compared to a psychological awakening. This is a kind of source of adrenaline. Whereas distress is always a negative reaction that a person may experience upon learning about an unpredictable divorce or the death of a loved one.
Eustress – emotional awakening
Typical symptoms of stress are more related to distress:
- sleep disturbance;
- denial of the problem;
- increased nervousness;
- aggressive reaction to the friendly attitude of others;
- disruption of the cardiovascular system;
- ulcers of the gastrointestinal tract;
- surges in blood pressure.
Important! Selye's laboratory studies confirmed that disturbances in the digestive and cardiovascular systems can be considered reliable symptoms of stress.
How to recover from stress
Having studied in detail all the stages of stress, Hans Selye believed that the best way to recover from emotional shock and general immersion in grief was to turn to memories of past victories and successes that happened throughout life. Bright pictures that carry a positive charge will help restore faith in the best and relieve the burden of experiences.
If stress has become a turning point in a person's life, he may require qualified medical assistance. When a patient who agrees to medical intervention has at least one meeting with a psychotherapist who manages to win over a person with a traumatized psyche, the emotional conversation alone will already produce results.
