What is stress? What are the causes of stress and its consequences?

Everywhere they say that we need to protect ourselves in every way, trying to live life as if "under the hood", without any active actions, emotions and unrest. Although this can immediately be said that this is an impossible task, besides - unreasonable. But stressful effects should not exceed the adaptive capacity of a person, as this is a direct road to various ailments and illnesses.

To prevent negative consequences of stress, it is very important to understand what this process is and what its causes are. About this and this article will tell.

What is stress

Stress is a complex of protective physiological reactions of the body in response to excessive influence of stimuli-stressors. In its development, stress passes through three phase-stages:   

• alarm, when our natural defenses are actively mobilized;


• stabilization, when the adaptive reserves are spent;


• depletion, when the adaptive capacity of the body is completely exhausted.

Causes of stress
The factors that trigger a stress reaction are called stressors. They can be both psychological and physiological. The need to make a quick decision( in conditions of lack of time), excessive responsibility, information overload, conflicts in the family and at work, threats - all these are psychological stressors. And the most common physiological factors of stress include pain, extreme heat or cold, noise, intense physical activity, too a strict diet and the like.

In general, any significant change in our life, whether for the worse or, oddly enough, for the better - can act as a kind of stressor. American scientists even developed a special scale, where different life situations have a certain "stressful" weight. To these situations, they attributed not only sad events - death of relatives, divorce or dismissal from work, but also such pleasant events as a wedding or moving to a new apartment. In addition, stressful effects are usually summarized and when the "critical mass" is reached, the deterioration of well-being and the development of various ailments are almost inevitable.

Consequences of stress for the human body
In case of stress, adrenaline and other hormones are released into the bloodstream, resulting in a dramatic change in the performance of various organs and systems: heart rate increases, immunity and blood clotting increases, wound healing accelerates, attention, eyesight and hearing become more acute. We gain the maximum power that we are capable of. The body is ready to fight and is able to cope with the danger. This is the age-old mechanism of survival. But in a civilized society, in peacetime, active "military" actions, as a rule, do not occur. In fact, the entire human body comes to full combat readiness, and all - idle. Unregulated stress remains in the body in the form of ailments: cardiovascular and endocrine diseases, stomach problems, not to mention various malfunctions in the nervous system.

But stress itself is not a disease, but a completely natural reaction of the organism to factors that threaten its comfort and safety.

Stress contains both negative and positive components. The positive components include the fact that under stress, the body mobilizes, adapts to new situations, provides resistance to stress factors and adapts to them. But since the reserve resources of the body are limited, then if the stress is too strong or prolonged, it is most likely that its third phase will come - exhaustion. And this already leads to serious problems and breakdowns in the body.

So what should I do? How to save yourself from the devastating effects of excessive stress? There is a simple solution to which the site Vse-Sekrety.ru is ready to share with its readers. It is only necessary to determine in a timely manner the source of your stress and react to it correctly. After all, the ability to manage a personal level of stress is the main condition for physical health and peace of mind. For this, there is currently a huge selection of different techniques and techniques. Ultimately, the opportunity to make your life more healthy, joyful and fulfilling in every way possible!