Gregersen 1 Audrey Gregersen Kim Strickland English 1010 April 17th 2014 Exploration Paper

Stressed About Stressing

Erosion is an interesting concept, especially as we consider that sometimes the results take years to become apparent. While the effect takes time, the effects are always obvious. Entire rock formations are broken down and completely changed due to this small constant force called erosion. Now, what would happen if a person were constantly exposed to similar eroding forces everyday, consistently, for about a decade? In all likelihood, there would be nothing left. People are not made of stone. The human body does not handle that type of abuse very well for that long. Unfortunately, everyday there are strong consistent forces that are breaking people down and eroding at their mental wellbeing until there is nothing left. That small consistent but powerful force is called stress and it is a major problem that continues to have a detrimental effect on society and the mental and physical health of many.

Emotional or mental tension that is generated from environments or situations that can be adverse or demanding, are summarized as stress. Stress can be either good or bad. First, stress can be bad if a given situation could be described as negative. Good stress is what people pay good money to feel. For instance, sky diving or riding a bike down the side of a mountain creates adrenaline causing an increase in heart rate and awareness. The result is a

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thrill that many find addicting. Stress is the bodys way of rising to a challenge, whether the challenge is life threatening, trivial, or fun. The right amount of stress is called stimulation. (Sapolsky, 2008)

Although stress can be good for people it is more negatively felt than positively felt. The amount of time an individual carries stress will determine how that stress will affect a person's physical and mental state. What effects occur are determined by two different but related types of stress. There is acute stress, which lasts for a short amount of time and there is chronic stress which is persistent for an ongoing amount of time. Acute stress is short term and the reaction is immediate, but diminishes once the situation is resolved. Chronic stress is the result of exposure to one or several distressful situations that are not or have yet to be resolved. Some events in a persons life are traumatic enough that a person will have difficulty resolving their feelings surrounding that event for many years. (Bryant, 2008)

These two types of stress take place because of the stress response. For the stress response to take place hormones are released that allow more oxygen into the body. Blood starts pumping, the heart races, and our muscles tend to tense. Several parts of the brain are important in this scenario. First, the amygdala that is responsible for emotional processing receives a distress signal. That message is sent to the hypothalamus, which acts like a command center, relaying information to the rest of the body through the nervous system. This activates the sympathetic nervous system preparing the body for an emergency response. Those signals continue through the autonomic nerves and to the adrenal glands, which immediately begin pumping adrenaline, also known as epinephrine. The adrenaline enters the blood stream and triggers the fight or flight response. (The Human Brain)

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As the effects of the adrenaline wear off a series of hormones are needed to keep the sympathetic nervous system active incase the brain feels threatened. If further threat is detected, the body will produce cortisol. Cortisol is the chemical that allows the body to achieve greater performance by weakening the activity of the immune system and increasing the production of sugar and flow of oxygen (Lasley-McEwen).

However, the continued presence of cortisol in the body has severely negative effects. High levels of stress are linked to increased levels of cortisol, which can cause illness, effect recovery time from injuries, and cause rapid weight gain. Interestingly, the type of weight gain caused by cortisol will ignore the limbs and focus on fat deposits in the abdominal and hip regions. Considered the most unpleasant place for fat deposits, abdominal fat is also a cause of more severe health conditions such as prostate cancer in men. Other effects include insomnia, reduced libido, impotence in men, and infertility in women due to increased levels of androgens. (Lado-Abeal, 1998)

The body will continue to produce cortisol until the stressor or danger passes. Once the stressor or danger has passed, the body will activate the parasympathetic nervous system promoting the relaxation response by slowing the heart rate and returning oxygen and blood pressure levels to normal. The two different responses, sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system, work together to turn off and on the hormones involved with stress. Without stress the body could lack hormones in some places while other hormones would be running amuck. (The Human Brain)

Finding hormonal balance is why the brain is always actively seeking the holy grail of homeostasis, that elusive state of metabolic equilibrium between the stimulating and the

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tranquilizing chemical forces in your body (The Human Brain: Stress). If the chemicals in your body and mind, that deal with stress, are not being started and stopped there will be an imbalance and the chemicals meant to help you will become harmful instead. In some people, [exposure to repeated stress] takes the form of a sluggish response by the adrenals and a subsequent lack of sufficient cortisol (Coping with stress: Lasley and McEwen). So a person does need some stress, but only some. As the famous saying goes, a little bit goes a long way.

The reason why the brain will trigger the stress response is because it can sense danger. This is why a person can have a reaction to a problem without even thinking about it. The brain actually protects itself when there is danger present. The stress response is also known as the flight or fight response because one has a choice of either running away or staying to fight in a moment or peril. These instincts once served to protect us from danger that existed in the natural world from predators and other lifer threatening ordeals, but now danger is all around us. That danger is in the form of work, family, school, and financial demands. In a National Geographic special, Robert Sapolsky observed: What once helped us survive has now become the scourge of our lives.

Every person is different and everyone experiences stress differently. For instance, people tend to be stressed out about certain environments or situations that other people may like. There is a number of stressors that impact how stressed we become and for how long. The stressors that many people usually experience can be put into twelve categories. There are emotional stressors, family stressors, social stressors, change stressors, chemical stressors, decision stressors, phobic stressors, physical stressors, disease stressors, pain stressors, and

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environmental stressors (Burrows, 2006). These stressors are continuously effecting an enormous amount of people everywhere.

As illustrated earlier, illness and disease can be provoked by stress. Prolonged exposure to cortisol generated from stress makes the body susceptible to illness and disease by shutting down the nonessential systems in the body including the immune system. This makes the body vulnerable to injurious bacteria that will enter the body. When this happens ulcers begin to form and the body is stripped of its ability to repair the stomach walls. While the nonessential systems are shut down the stomach bacteria can rampage. Those who continually suffer from stress are also at greater risk of heart disease and Diabetes. While these are the symptoms of a chronically stressed person, it is important to remember that these symptoms occur gradually and are the long-term result of not managing or resolving stress. (Sapolsky, 2008)

Prolonged stress causes a person to become cognitively unstable. Memory is damaged and the person will have difficulty being able to recall or learn something. The hippocampus is the part of the brain where learning and memories happen. When there are chemicals in that part of the brain constantly killing brain cells, it can give the effect of being cognitively impaired. This happens because the cortisol present in the body directs glucose, or sugar to the center of the body near the heart and lungs and reserves only a small amount for the brain (Lado-Abeal, 1998). Very severe acute stress can have the same effect making it increasingly difficult in short periods of time to remember things that otherwise a person would know perfectly well. Surprisingly, this can be as simple as remembering someones name (Portrait of a killer: Sapolsky, 2008).

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One-third of Americans live with what is categorized as extreme stress.(Bryant, 2008). Stress effects everyone. However, individuals with less income and lower influential positions within an organization tend to experience the most stress. It all comes down to control. Those who feel more in control have less stress and greater mental health and physical health than those who do not. Robert Sapolsky in Stress: Portrait of a killer found that, in general, when study cases have reported to them that the amount of work stress has gone up, illness rates increased as well. Low illness rates correlated to when subjects reported feeling they had been treated more fairly at work and felt more secure in their workplace.

This tells us that while it is great to be the boss, any individual can regulate their stress by achieving control of themselves and circumstance. Poverty and low status jobs do correlate strongly to stress, however it is not the reason or cause of stress. There are many programs available that teach how to prevent and cope with stress. Understanding how to cope with stress and how we contribute to another persons stress is an incredibly important step towards addressing what is already a rampant issue. (Aldwin 2007)

It should now be clear to the mind of anyone, how disastrous the prolonged effects of stress can be on an individual. On a personal level, stress erodes away the happiness of the soul and takes away the joy that should otherwise be the heart of a fulfilling life. While it may not always be noticeable, it is a constant force whose effects are varied and widespread. There is no indication that the amount of stress encountered in daily living will go away anytime soon. Stress continues to have a negative and severe effect on the health of individuals and the function of large organizations. Addressing stress both on an individual basis and through policy directives implemented at state and private levels is an essential step towards improving the overall health of the public. Stress is unwanted, unnecessary, and preventable. It may be easy

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to ignore but over time that small constant eroding force called stress might end up creating a Grand Canyon out of what we call civilization.

Works Cited
Lado-Abeal, J. "Menstrual Abnormalities in Women with Cushing's Disease Are Correlated with Hypercortisolemia Rather Than Raised Circulating Androgen Levels." Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism 83.9 (1998): 3083-088. Press.endocrine.org. Endocrine.org. Web. 18 Apr. 2014. Aldwin, Caeolyn M. Stress, Copping, and evelopment. 2nd Ed. New York: The Guilford Press, 2007. Print. Bryant, Charles W. What are the Physical Effects of Stress? howstuffworks. n.p. 23 Oct. 2008. Web. 4 April 2014. Burrows, Betty. How Stress Works howstuffworks n.p. 11 Sept. 2006. Web. 4 April 2014. Peterson, Karen S. "Is all that Stress Killing You? Probably, Experts Say." USA TODAY: n.p. May 27 2003. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 28 Feb. 2014 . Sapolsky, Robert M. Why Zebras Dont Get Ulcers. 3rd ed. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2004. Print. Stress: Portrait of a Killer. Dir. John Heminway. Perf. Robert Sapolsky. National Geographic, 2008. Film. The Handbook of Stress: neuropsychological Effects on the Brain. Cheryl D. Conrad. Malden: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2011. Print. The Human Brain: Stress The Franklin Institute: Resources for Science Learning. The Franklin Institute Online, 2004. Web. April 11, 2014. The Praeger Handbook On: Stress and Coping. Alan Monat, Richard S. Lazarus, Gretchen Reevy. Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2007. Print.