Stress

Stress

2007

Stress is undoubtedly a distasteful state of emotional and physiological awakening that people experience in situations that they perceive as dangerous or threatening to their well-being and lives . For example A threat to your life or safety triggers a primal physical response from the body , leaving you breathless , heart pounding , and mind racing (nih .gov ,1 . It is also a natural reaction by the body that happens when a part of the brain perceives unstable activity . The word stress means different things to different people . Some people define stress

as events or situations that cause them to feel tension , pressure , or negative emotions such as anxiety and anger . Others view stress as the response to these situations . This kind of reaction includes physiological changes such as increased heart rate and muscle tension as well as emotional and behavioral changes . However , most psychologists regard stress as a process involving anyone 's interpretation and reaction to a threatening event (Reuter 's health .com

Most contemporary stress researchers have accepted the view of Lazarus and Folkman (1984 ) that stress is a quality of transactions between person and environmental demands . These authors (p . 24 ) defined stress as a relationship between the person and the environment that is appraised by the person as taxing or exceeding his or her resources and endangering his or her well-being ' More recently , Lazarus (2001 suggested that stress , as a , should be accommodated in emotion research . Negative emotions , such as anxiety and sadness , are expressions of core relational themes , which describe the person-environment transaction . For example , anxiety represents facing an uncertain , existential threat

The transactional model is also concerned with finer grained analysis of the cognitive processes that control the person-environment interaction Stress reactions are influenced by evaluation or appraisal of environmental demands . Appraisals may be divided into primary (personal significance of events ) and secondary (coping ability ) appraisals . Some authors have distinguished different levels of appraisal differing in automaticity ' and accessibility to consciousness (Van Reekum Scherer , 1997 . Transactional theory emphasizes the person 's active attempts to deal with external demands , over what may be extended periods . Lazarus and Folkman (1984 ) distinguished two fundamental categories of processing : problem or task focused and emotion focused Task-focused coping is directed toward changing external reality whereas emotion-focused coping aims to change the way the person feels or thinks about the source of stress . Many authors (Cox Ferguson 1991 ) have seen attempts at avoidance of demands as a third basic category . The transactional theory is supported by many studies demonstrating that stress outcomes relate to appraisal of environmental demands and the person 's choice of coping strategy (Zeidner Endler 1996

Coping overlaps with the concept of self-regulation (Matthews , Schwean Campbell , Saklofske Mohamed , 2000 , which may be defined as proximate motivational processes by which persons influence the direction , amount , and form of committed effort during task engagement (Kanfer , 1990 ,

. 222 . Effort may be internally directed (emotion-focus ) as well as task directed . For example , progress toward personal goals may be effected by reappraisal...