Stress psychology can be a bit different than what we casually use the word to describe in our daily lives. Stress in psychology is your brain and body’s response to anything requiring attention or action. Any change that causes strain physically, emotionally, or psychologically can be described as stress.
While we all have to deal with stressful events or even traumatic events from time to time, when it gets out of control, or it’s something we’re chronically exposed to over a long period of time, it can wreak havoc on our mental and physical health, as well as our quality of life. Even in healthy individuals, chronic stressors can have a significant negative impact.
Understanding Psychological Stress
First, we’re going to answer the question of what stress psychology is.
- According to major American healthcare associations, stress is any change leading to strain.
- Everyone experiences some degree of stress, but how you respond impacts your well-being significantly.
- The American Psychological Association says the stress psychology definition is the response to internal or external stressors. According to this definition of stress, it affects almost every body system and how you behave and feel.
- Stress may manifest as physical symptoms like dry mouth and shortness of breath in some people.
- Because how a stressful situation can create mind-body changes, it directly contributes to psychological and physiological disorders and diseases and reduces your quality of life.
Many things can cause stress throughout our lives, including relationships, parenting, work, money, and inconveniences.
- Depending on the situation, acute stressors can trigger your body’s fight-or-flight response, which happens when you perceive a threat.
- During your fight-or-flight response, hormones like cortisol and adrenaline flood your body. This leads to slowing heart rate and digestion, and your body gains strength and energy.
- When the perceived threat or sources of stress go away, your body’s relaxation response should be activated.
- If you’re someone dealing with chronic sources of stress, you don’t get enough of the relaxation response. You may feel like you’re constantly in a state of fight or flight, damaging your body.
- Post-traumatic stress disorder can also occur when your body gets “stuck” in that fight-or-flight mode.
A number of unhealthy habits can also arise as a means of coping with stress. For example, people might turn to drugs, alcohol, smoking, or eating to deal with stress. This further causes damage to your physical and mental health and worsens the problem in the long run.
What Are the Types of Stress?
When talking about what stress is in psychology, we can also face different types. Not all stress is harmful.
- Acute stress is very short-term, and we often deal with it in our daily lives.
- Chronic stress is what you can’t seem to escape from, and it can occur because of childhood trauma or general traumatic episodes, a bad marriage, or a difficult job.
- Episodic stress is an acute form that can seem like a way of life for people experiencing it.
- There’s also a term called eustress, which is positive stress that helps you feel energized and excited. You might get eustress when you’re engaged in an extreme sport or working on a project with a tight deadline.
Signs of Stress
Whether short- or long-term, some of the frequent signs of stress include:
- Mood changes
- Reduced sex drive
- Diarrhea
- Sweaty or clammy palms
- Problems sleeping
- Digestive issues
- Dizziness
- Anxiety
- Frequently being sick
- Teeth grinding
- Low energy
- Headaches
- Muscle tension
- Physical pain
- Trembling
- Racing heartbeat
The Effects of Stress and its Impact on Health
There is a strong connection between our bodies and our minds, and we can see this clearly when we look at the effects of stress on our lives. When you feel stressed often, it will affect your physical health. If you’re dealing with physical health concerns, you’ll feel this inversely because these problems will create mental stress.
Stress can affect every bodily system, including your endocrine, gastrointestinal, respiratory, and musculoskeletal systems. Every individual experiences stress differently.
Some of the many ways ongoing stress or a stressful event or stressful situation can affect us depending on individual differences include:
- When your body is stressed, your muscles tense. Chronic stress causes your muscles to be constantly guarded, leading to tension and migraine headaches. Many people with high-stress levels experience low back and upper arms pain. Chronic pain is frequently associated with stress as well.
- When you experience strong emotional responses, it can affect your respiratory system and create cardiovascular responses. For example, when you’re under extreme stress, you may have shortness of breath or rapid breathing.
- Chronic stress can lead to an ongoing increase in your heart rate, high-stress hormone levels, and elevated blood pressure. These factors increase the risk of heart attack, stroke, or hypertension.
- When dealing with something stressful or threatening, your brain starts a series of events involving your hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. This effect leads to the production of steroid hormones like cortisol from the adrenal glands. While you need cortisol sometimes, chronic stress can lead to impaired communication between your HPA axis and the rest of your body. This impairment raises the risk of metabolic disorders like diabetes and obesity, depression, chronic fatigue, and immune disorders. When you deal with ongoing sources of stress, it can make you more susceptible to everything from the common cold to more serious illnesses because you may have a weaker immune system.
- Your gastrointestinal system can be profoundly impacted by stress over periods. Stress can make your bowels feel uncomfortable and bloated. Stress especially affects people who have chronic bowel disorders like inflammatory bowel diseases.
- Exposure to chronic stress raises your risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorder, panic attacks, depressive disorder, acute distress disorder, and other psychological disorders.
Stress Management in Orange County, CA
The treatments for stress depend on your particular situation. Stress isn’t itself a psychological diagnosis. Instead, it’s a symptom of other conditions or something arising from other mental or physical concerns.
Treatment for stress depends on dealing with the underlying situation and developing coping skills for the physiological responses. People with high levels of stress might learn relaxation techniques they can rely on daily.
- Talk therapy is very effective for dealing with stress. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is one type of talk therapy that can help deal with stress and promote the development of coping strategies for actual situations you face. Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) is another approach to talk therapy.
- Depending on the symptoms and whether there’s an underlying condition, someone might take medication to help. For example, sleep aids, anti-anxiety medications, and antidepressants may be helpful, especially when used with therapy.
- You have to be proactive about finding ways to deal with a stressful event or chronic stress.
- You should learn how to recognize the signs of burnout in yourself. High-stress levels put you at risk of burnout. Burnout then leads to feelings of apathy and exhaustion. If you notice you’re emotionally exhausted, take a step back and figure out what you need to do to get things under control.
- Regular exercise and physical activity are extremely effective ways to deal with the stress response and improve symptoms of mental illnesses.
- Self-care is also a way to reduce the stress response you experience daily.
- Stress management training can also be an effective way to deal with major life events and physiological and emotional responses to stress that you may have.
No matter what strategies you use, getting a handle on your stress response is integral to good overall health and a sense of well-being.
Connect with the Story Wellness team today by calling (866) 476-2823 if you’d like to learn about working with a mental health professional in the Orange County, CA, area. We can help with navigating a particularly stressful life event and other conditions like acute stress disorder or posttraumatic stress disorder.
