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There is no other psychological term that has become so firmly established in our lives as stress.
Stress They call it a problem of the 20th century, which smoothly turned into the 21st. Concerned about the health of their subordinates, the owners of American companies rushed to combat stress. Cigna Corporation offers breaks during the workday during which employees listen to music, dance and do exercises. And overstressed Lipschultz, Levin and Gray employees can play darts, mini golf or hula hoop right in the office.
According to some Western experts, up to 70% of diseases are associated with emotional stress. In Europe, more than a million people die every year due to stress-related cardiac dysfunction. vascular system.
According to VTsIOM, two-thirds of Muscovites are constantly in a state of stress, and a third of the country’s population is in a state of severe stress, which not only reduces a person’s performance, but also leads to serious illnesses.
Every person has experienced it, everyone has heard about it, but almost no one takes the trouble to find out what stress is. Many words become fashionable when Scientific research leads to the emergence of a new concept that influences everyday behavior or the way we think about fundamental life issues. Nowadays there is a lot of talk about stress associated with administrative or business activities, with pollution environment, with retirement, with physical stress, family problems or the death of a relative. But have you ever thought about what stress is?
The word "stress", like "success", "failure" and "happiness", has different meaning for different people, because we are all different, and each of us has our own life experiences and our own values. Therefore, it is very difficult to define stress, although it has become part of our everyday speech. Isn't "stress" just a synonym for "distress"*? Is it effort, fatigue, pain, fear, the need to concentrate, the humiliation of public shaming, loss of blood or even an unexpected huge success leading to the breaking of everything? way of life? The answer to this question is both yes and no. This is why it is so difficult to define stress. Any of these conditions can cause stress, but none of them can be isolated and said: this is stress, because this term equally applies to all others.
The first definition of stress was given by the Canadian physiologist Hans Selye, according to which stress is anything that leads to rapid aging of the body or causes illness.
R. M. Granovskaya defines stress as a set of stereotypical, phylogenetic programmed nonspecific reactions of the body that prepare it for physical activity, that is, resistance, fight or flight. Weak influences do not lead to stress; it occurs only when the influence of stress exceeds the normal adaptive capabilities of a person.
/* Distress(English) – grief, misfortune, malaise, exhaustion, need; Stress(English) – pressure, pressure, tension/
The encyclopedic dictionary gives the following interpretation: “A set of protective physiological reactions that occur in the body of animals and humans in response to the influence of various unfavorable factors.”
In modern psychological science and practice, the distinction between the concepts of “physiological stress” and “psychological stress”, introduced by the famous stress researcher Richard Lazarus, has been established.
1. Physiological stress(based on the concept of “general adaptation syndrome” by G. Selye) - a condition expressed in animals and humans at the physiological level under the influence of stress factors such as excessive physical activity, high or low temperature, painful stimuli, difficulty breathing, etc. .
According to G. Selye, “adaptation syndrome” includes 3 stages:
anxiety,
resistance,
adaptation or exhaustion.
2. Psychological stress- a state of extremely high psychological stress, which can have a strong and bad influence on the state, behavior, and activity of a person under the influence of various stress factors (information overload, situations of resentment, threats, uncertainty, etc.).
There are quite a large number of concepts and models of stress among both domestic and foreign researchers:
– cognitive theory of psychological stress by R. Lazarus, which is based on the position of considering stress from subjective points of view through the prism of cognitive processes;
– concepts of professional stress (A. N. Zankovsky, T. Sokh, W. Schorpflug, etc.),
– socio-psychological theories of stress (concepts: D. Mechanik, R. Darendor, B. P. Darenwend, etc.) and many others.
The above examples of concepts reflect the current tendency in psychological science and practice to differentiate the concept of “psychological stress” into various types of classifications depending on the field of psychological knowledge. One of the options for such a classification is considered:
– Interpersonal psychological stress– characterized by a subjective assessment of interpersonal interaction, the presence of conflicts or their threat;
– Professional, or organizational stress – associated with the complexity, danger, responsibility of performing work tasks, disruption in the organization and working conditions;
– social or public psychological stress– associated with social, socio-economic problems, unemployment, bad habits(alcohol, drugs), national or regional conflicts and wars;
– family psychological stress– includes all the difficulties in maintaining a family - marital problems, interaction with children, relatives, etc.;
– Intrapersonal psychological stress– reflects “I-conflict”, unrealized aspirations, needs, aimless existence;
– environmental psychological stress- occurs due to adverse environmental influences - harsh climatic conditions, overcrowding, etc.
All definitions for this classification (the same applies to other classifications) reflect the dependence of the name of the type of stress on the dominant factors that determine it. However, any type of psychological stress includes:
general factors (characteristic of all types of stress),
· specific factors (characteristic only for this type of stress),
· external or objective factors, under which there are objectively recorded conditions for the occurrence of stress (limited time, large volume of workload, and so on),
· subjective, personal factors, which are largely determined by the individual characteristics of a person (inadequate self-esteem, motivational characteristics, temperament, high levels of personal tension, anxiety, aggressiveness and others).
Stress is associated with positive and negative experiences. Physiological stress levels are lowest during moments of indifference, but are never zero (which would mean death). Pleasant and unpleasant emotional arousal is accompanied by an increase in physiological stress (but not necessarily distress).
Destructive stress, or distress, destroys behavior and is the source of numerous unpleasant experiences and illnesses. Fighting its external manifestations is not only futile, but also harmful. Distress should be prevented, or if the person is already distressed, it should be treated.
Main symptoms of distress: 1. absent-mindedness
2. increased excitability
3. constant fatigue
4. loss of sense of humor
5. a sharp increase in the number of cigarettes smoked with a simultaneous addiction to alcoholic beverages
6. loss of sleep and appetite
7. memory impairment
8. sometimes so-called “psychosomatic” pain in the head, back, stomach is possible
9. complete absence of sources of joy.
If you notice at least one of the listed signs or any combination of them, then it’s time to intervene in your own life - think calmly, discuss the situation (preferably with a loved one), try to find out and eliminate the reasons that caused your psychophysical overstrain.
Stressor(synonymous with stress factor, stress situation) - an extreme or pathological stimulus or an adverse effect of significant strength and duration that causes stress. A stimulus becomes a stressor either due to the meaning a person assigns to it (cognitive interpretation), or through lower brain sensory mechanisms, through the mechanisms of digestion and metabolism.
There are different classifications of stressors. In the most general form there are: 1. Physiological stressors(excessive pain and noise, exposure to extreme temperatures, taking certain medications, such as caffeine, etc.);
2. Psychological stressors(information overload, competition, threat to social status, self-esteem, immediate environment, etc.);
3. Social stressors(changes in government, natural disasters, dollar exchange rate, traffic jams, habits of other people, etc.).
From the point of view of the stress response, it does not matter whether the situation we are faced with is pleasant or unpleasant. All that matters is the intensity of the need for restructuring or adaptation.
Example:A mother who was informed of the death of her only son experiences terrible mental shock. If, many years later, the message turns out to be false and her son suddenly walks into the room unharmed, she will feel intense joy.
The specific results of two events - grief and joy - are completely different, even opposite, but their stressor effect is a nonspecific requirement for adaptation to new situation- may be the same.
Another possible classification is the division of stressors into three groups according to the degree of our influence on them.
1. Stressors that are beyond our control: this is your gender and age, weather, country of residence, laws, tax system, established price levels in the market, purchasing power of the population, etc.
2. Stressors that cause stress only because of our interpretation. Examples include anxious thoughts about unlikely future events (“What if the delivery of goods fails?”) as well as worries about past events that we cannot change.
3. Stressors we can directly influence: interaction with business partners and competitors, own unconstructive actions, lack of time, lack of skill in setting goals in life and business. This can also include health indicators, excess weight, blood pressure levels in the initial stages of hypertension and other factors.
Stressors can be both real and imaginary. A person reacts not only to actual physical danger, but also to a threat or reminder of it. It should also be noted that a person tolerates failures, losses, and grief more easily when the reasons seem to him to be purely external, independent of his own actions, and it is more difficult for him to experience his wrong behavior, as a result of which a traumatic situation arose.
A stressor is a lever that triggers the stress mechanism. Moreover, this is not necessarily a factor that affects everyone equally. The main thing is the impact that gets you.
Example:You can't stand it when someone leaves trash on the dinner table. Everyone else reacts to this completely normally, but you insist on cleanliness and order. Well, you have every right.
Targets are our internal beliefs, ideas, views and stereotypes - that “pedal”, by pressing which the stressor achieves a stress reaction. Ian McDermott and Joseph O'Connor provide a gradation of stress targets depending on the logical level at which they arose:
1. Environment
Those factors that cause you stress in your environment. A long commute to work, a cramped and noisy office, non-working household appliances, a quarrel with a loved one. Your job can be stressful if you have a lot of demands on you and you don't have the ability to handle them.
2. Behavior
Your actions can lead to stress. Maybe leaving for a meeting at the last minute and the constant stress that comes with it, or having to meet people's demands at a time when you don't want to. Changes in routine can be stressful.
3. Abilities
If you have the ability to turn on anxiety in yourself, then you have developed a certain skill. You can almost certainly easily imagine how something leads to an unsatisfactory outcome. You probably do this by creating mental movies of how things might go wrong, and then imagining the terrifying consequences. And this is also a certain skill. It demonstrates your ability to imagine pictures so vividly that you can create significant chemical changes in your body. There are probably other uses for this talent. What happens if you use that same power of vivid imagination to imagine what will happen 15 minutes after the event has been satisfactorily resolved, and then think about how you could achieve that?
4. Beliefs and values
You may not have considered that beliefs and values can cause stress or act as resources against it, but this is an area where changes can have a significant effect. We carry our beliefs with us, so they will cause stress wherever we are. The more rigid our beliefs and expectations, the greater the stress we experience, because the world around us will not bend its path just to meet our needs.
The belief that people are untrustworthy and are ready to deceive you at the first opportunity will keep you on edge and cause stress. Beliefs that make you dependent on other people or events, or that you have no choice in how you respond to events, will contribute to stress.
5. Identity
The only stress at this level can be a false image. It can manifest itself in two ways. First - concerns relationships between people when a person does not allow anyone to see the real him, and most likely works in cases where a person cannot express himself fully in his work. Second The way a false image manifests itself is as a mask, put on for one's own or someone else's benefit, to protect one's real identity. Such a mask can arise in childhood, when a person did not know how to cope with something and used a false image as a means. When this happens, the person once again experiences the feeling of emptiness, and his behavior loses an additional degree of freedom to maintain balance.
Try to monitor the changes that happen to you when you find yourself in a stressful situation. You brace yourself as if waiting for a blow, the muscles of your face, chest and abdomen tense. Breathing increases because cells require more oxygen. Due to the narrowing of small blood vessels, blood pressure increases. The frequency and force of heart contractions increases, causing blood to flow much faster. These changes are caused by the physiology of stress, but other manifestations are strictly individual. And they depend on the condition nervous system: strong or weak; from the predominance of inhibition or excitation processes in the cerebral cortex; on a person’s ability to control himself and his emotions; from upbringing; and even from family and national traditions.
Shifts that occur during stress are a manifestation of an ancient defensive reaction formed during evolution. This reaction was instantly activated in our ancestors at the slightest threat, ensuring with maximum speed the mobilization of the body's forces necessary to fight the enemy or escape from him. This mobilization was very convenient for cavemen or other harsh times when stress meant that a person had to be ready for physical action. Currently, this leads to additional problems. Today, when under stress you need not physical, but emotional resources, the body continues to react as if you needed physical activity. As a result, a temporary increase in blood pressure, justified by a situation of real danger, turns into a painful state due to lingering indignation about what is a thing of the past and what no longer exists, or about what does not yet exist and, perhaps, will not exist at all.
The question is when and how circumstances become truly stressful. Two people who find themselves in the same situation will react to it differently, depending on their character, experience, emotional state and other factors. One will not see any threat to himself in the situation and will remain calm, while the other will have a feeling of unaccountable anxiety or obvious fear. Stress occurs when circumstances are subjectively perceived as threatening. It does not matter whether the threat is real or imaginary - the important thing is that the threat psychologically exists for a person who begins to look for ways out of the situation. Forms of overcoming difficult situations, or coping strategies (from the English verb to cope - “to cope”, “to cope”), can be very different, such as violent affect (anger, aggression, tears, laughter), rethinking the situation (new interpretation significance of events, an attempt to see them “in a different light,” rationalization) and actions directly aimed at resolving the problem.
Depending on how effective the chosen coping strategy is, problematic situation successfully overcome or, on the contrary, aggravated even more. In the first case, the experience of stress ends, having replenished the “piggy bank” of useful experience; in the second, it increases and turns into a destructive, potentially hazardous form.
American psychologist T. Cox identified two personality types (he called them “type A” and “type B”) based on their reaction to stress.
Type A:
– A persistent desire to achieve intended, but usually vaguely defined goals.
– Strong desire and willingness to compete.
– The desire to be recognized and to advance in something further.
– Performing many different functions under limited time.
– Tendency to increase the pace of work.
– The ability to quickly make decisions and take action.
Type B: – Clearly setting goals, calmly thinking about methods to achieve them.
– Lack of desire to compete.
– Recognition doesn’t really matter.
– Performing certain functions for an unlimited period of time.
– Calm, measured pace of work.
– Decisions are made after preliminary deliberation.
Type "A" personalities are constantly spinning "like a squirrel in a wheel." Their life is full of events and problems. They often become “workaholics”; as a rule, they love their work very much and devote themselves to it without reserve, turning any situation into a race (for example, they like to constantly move from one lane of the road to another in order to gain a few minutes of time); remain in a “wound up” state around the clock; do several things at the same time. They cannot stop and relax in time, resulting in nervous exhaustion and risk of heart failure. vascular diseases extremely large for them.
In contrast, people of type "B" live measuredly, without haste. They manage to combine work, entertainment with family responsibilities. They plan their day clearly, without trying to “embrace the immensity.” On weekends they prefer not to think about work, they try to relax and do something pleasant. They tend to have good health, high self-esteem, experience successfully coping with stress, and a positive approach to life. Negative emotions are partially or fully compensated.
Overcoming and correcting stress can be carried out by a variety of means: these can be attempts to minimize stressful working conditions and everyday life, and the treatment of existing diseases caused by prolonged experience of stress, and the actual psychological “stress management”, which allows increasing resistance to stress. In each specific case, the recipe for dealing with stress can be very individual, but should be based on comprehensive analysis, as the most psychological situation, and psychophysiological state.
We should not forget about the potential benefits of stress, which, under certain conditions, leads to an increase in a person’s psychological and biological endurance. The positive impact of moderate stress is manifested in a number of psychological properties– notes R. M. Granovskaya – Improving attention, increasing a person’s interest in achieving a goal, in a positive emotional coloring work process.
Danish scientists, for example, have found that daily stress reduces the risk of developing breast cancer. Researchers believe this is due to hormonal imbalances, specifically the decrease in estrogen levels that occurs with chronic stress.
Remember, stress is associated with almost any activity; only those who do nothing can avoid it. But who enjoys an inactive life?
Stress, unless, of course, it is associated with a physical threat, is a reaction not to a fact, but to the meaning assigned to it. Change the meaning and you change your reaction to what is happening. As Hans Selye said about stress, “stress is not what happened to you, but how you perceive it.”
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Introduction
The 21st century is an era of stress. Stress has really taken over everyone's life. Interestingly, this concept came to us from physics and appeared in psychology thanks to accidental observations of laboratory rats. Everything happened thanks to Nobel laureate- Hans Selye, more than seventy years ago, Selye used the technical term stress, meaning pressure, impact on a person. More precisely, not even on humans, but first on laboratory rats on which he conducted experiments. Thus, stress has been defined as “a nonspecific reaction of the body to external influences.” That is, Selye determined that the cause of pathological changes is not the external influence itself, but the reaction of the rat’s body to this influence.
Stress statistics.
· Russia: 70% of the population are constantly under stress
· USA: 60% experience stress 1-2 times a week, 30% every day
US economic losses from stress amount to more than $50 billion annually
Due to constant stress, 80% of people feel chronic fatigue
· Russia: statistics on options for getting rid of stress:
o TV -- 46%
o Music -- 43%
o Alcohol -- 19%
o Medicines -- 15%
o Sports -- 12%
o Sex -- 9%
o Yoga, meditation -- 2%
· 40 million of the 147 employed people in the European Union suffer from stress, costing society US$19 billion annually
· Some residents of “Greater Europe” suffer from various consequences of stress - 13% report periodic pain in the head, 17% in the muscles, 30% in the back
· According to sociological surveys, stress has a strong negative impact on the personal life of more than 60% of people.
I think we must admit that stress has become firmly established in the life of modern man. And every person should be able to manage their stress levels in order to maintain normal health and high productivity in school and at work.
1. Stress and stressors
When people talk about stress, they often mean events that cause strong emotions. This is not surprising, because our reactions appear almost simultaneously with what provokes them, and are perceived as part of what is happening. However, the event in itself is not stress and does not even always determine the nature and strength of the reaction. For example, for some people shopping is a joy, for others it annoys them, and for others it doesn’t matter.
Therefore, in order to find the source of stress energy, it is important to distinguish the cause (stressor) from the effect (stress).
A stressor is a change that throws the body out of balance and thereby triggers a physiological response aimed at survival and restoration of balance. The stressor can be external or internal; physical, chemical, biological or mental; real or imaginary. Moreover, an imaginary stressor (for example, anticipation of a kiss) can cause the same, and sometimes even stronger, reaction than a real kiss. Moderate stressors are useful and even necessary for normal life and development; they cause a useful reaction - eustress.
Eustress stimulates and develops the body's resources, strengthening and healing it.
However, if the changes are: too weak or too strong, too rare or too long, or have a special psychological significance for the person, then they can cause distress, leading to decompensation of the body's systems and resources.
The concept of stress presupposes the existence of a stressor, the impact of which causes a state of stress. The following stressors can be distinguished: the action of the elements, poisons (external or produced by the body), homeostatic imbalance when physiological variables go beyond acceptable limits, for example, an increase in temperature, lack of water, or an increase in acidity or alkalis in the blood.
Any agent of the internal and external environment can become a stressor depending on: 1. the intensity or duration of its impact and 2. how the body adapts to it. For example, short-term exposure to cold does not cause stress. Prolonged cold creates stress. Therefore, the concept of stressor includes time as one of its main characteristics.
There is a time limit, a time threshold for the influence of an agent, after which this agent can become a stressor for a given organism. Stress can be caused by overwork when the corresponding activity or activity exceeds not only the time threshold, but also the body's capabilities.
To generate stress, in addition to the above factors, a nonspecific, adaptive reaction of the body is required. For example, a lack of water in the body causes an adaptive reaction - thirst. However, as deprivation continues, symptoms of adaptation to the effects of dehydration appear. The generalized reaction is a command of the “everyone concerned” type to change the osmotic pressure in all membranes to retain water in the body. In this case, stress is a product of adaptive behavior, which gives rise to an adaptation disease depending on the duration of deprivation. Another stressor. Behavior and its circumstances can themselves become stressors. Obstacles to achieving a goal, conflict become stressors and cause a state of stress. However, with low or no motivation, these same circumstances do not cause stress. Therefore, blocked behavior can become a stressor only due to an increase in motivation. By controlling desire, the body can reduce the possibility of stress. A ban becomes a stressor only if there is a strong desire to violate the ban. Inappropriate behavior, as can be seen from the previous examples, causes not adaptive, but adaptive behavior of the organism. This allows us to consider stress as a condition that arises as a result of inadequate adaptation, defects in the management of the functional systems of the body and control of the behavior of the body as a whole. The digestive reaction to insult or fear of failure is an error in the body’s control of its own behavior and therefore, if repeated often enough, this error gives rise to an adaptation disease. We must not forget about such a source of stress as emotional contagion. In this case, the stressor becomes the mental act of identification with other people. Emotional contagion depends on the degree of connections between people. Fear for a loved one or compassion causes a state of stress in a person. In the same way, infection with other emotions occurs: anger or malice. Stress can be caused by cosmic factors. Disharmonies in individual and cosmic rhythms can cause illness and conflict in human relationships. It is known that a phase shift in the periods of individual rhythms of activity of two people by values p and p/2 contributes to an increase in emotional tension and conflicts. Social factors become stressors if their changes go beyond certain boundaries. War, social instability and threats to the lives of loved ones are strong stressors. Similarly, in peaceful life: loss of love, property, loved ones - can cause severe emotional stress. The cause of emotional stress, that is, stressors, can be personality traits. For example, resentment or feelings of inferiority can cause stress without the influence of external stressors. Personality traits contribute to an unfavorable definition of a situation for a person with all the ensuing consequences. A paranoid personality attitude creates chronic emotional stress, leading to adaptation diseases caused by constant readiness to repel an attack and a hostile environment. This chronic readiness to fight causes and maintains stress. The style of thinking determined by the philosophy of everyday life often interferes with normal adaptation to the social environment. Stressors can also be features of mental behavior and thinking, which I call pathogenic thinking. For example, the tendency to interpret the behavior of loved ones as deviating from certain cultural standards causes emotional stress in the interpreter. Othello thought incorrectly about his wife in general and about some aspects of her behavior and found himself in the stress of jealousy and died, although he managed to first strangle his wife. His ability to plan and carry out aggression on a large scale had adaptive significance; otherwise in warlike, trading Venetian Republic he would not have received the rank of general. However, this same behavior in relation to his wife turned out to be adaptive and fatal for him.
2. Terminology and difficulties in defining stress
There is no definition of the term “stress” in the Dictionary of Physiological Terms. Instead, a definition of “emotional stress” is given with synonyms - stress, tension, psychological stress, neuropsychic, emotional tension, psychophysiological stress.
In addition, in the literature there are terms: physical, psycho-emotional, information stress. The dictionary emphasizes that the adjective “emotional” indicates the special role of emotions in the genesis of stress. Emotional stress, according to the author, is a state of anxiety, conflict, emotional disorder, etc. - such emotional states that develop in a person when he is faced with real psychologically difficult situations, or considers them insoluble. In other words, stress by this definition is an emotion or a state caused by a negative emotion in unfavorable conditions. Obviously, cause and effect are confused here. Firstly, stress is an independent psychophysiological process that ensures a certain level of activity of the body. Emotions of anxiety and tension are secondary. Secondly, stress is not always harmful. But let us turn to G. Selye, who introduced this concept. Selye distinguished between “stress” and “distress”. Stress is beneficial and leads to adaptation; distress is harmful and leads to various psychosomatic diseases. The definition given in the dictionary reflects the real state of affairs: almost all experimental work and clinical cases are the consequences of distress. For Selye, stress was synonymous with physical or psychological pressure, pressure and tension, and distress was grief, unhappiness, malaise, exhaustion, need. According to Selye, stress can be pleasant and unpleasant, distress can only be unpleasant and painful. Thus, a substitution of concepts occurred. There would be nothing wrong with this, but a change in concepts can lead and has led to a change in the thinking of researchers, research methodology and strategy, ideas about the role and meaning of stress itself, about the relationship between stress, emotions and functional states. It is also important to understand this because stress is a genetically fixed set of reactions that have adaptive significance due to the anticipatory activation of mechanisms that prepare the body for a particular reaction before the stressor is realized.
It remains unclear whether and in what ways there are differences when using the terms psycho-emotional, emotional, psychological and physical stress. As Selye wrote: “If we want to avoid the harmful effects of changes in stress levels and at the same time not deprive ourselves of the aroma and taste of life, we must know the nature and role of stress.”
Selye defined stress as a nonspecific response of the body to any demand presented to it. In this definition, it is important to expand on the concept of “non-specific”. All stressors are strictly specific (be they emotional or physiological). At the same time, these stressors also have something common, nonspecific - the requirement to adapt to new conditions. This forces the body to adapt to the unusual situation that has arisen. Nonspecific demands imposed by exposure as such are the essence of stress.
Even more difficult to understand unambiguously are psychological definitions, when stress is considered as part of a dynamic system of interaction between the environment and the individual, where physiological reactions are determined by the psychological impact on the individual. And the latter already controls a person’s reactions in a stressful situation. Sometimes there are even expressions like “psychological mechanisms.” Numerous neuroscience data show that there are brain mechanisms (neural), the functioning of which underlies psychological patterns. Here it is necessary to emphasize once again that stress mechanisms are most often activated without the participation of consciousness.
Difficulties in defining stress also stem from the ambiguity of understanding what demands on the body can be called stressful. We have already mentioned the point of view of Selye, who considers stress to be part of our everyday experience: mental or physical effort, emotional arousal, fatigue, pain. In other words, any demands on the body are stress. A number of authors disagree with this. Thus, there is a point of view that stress as a nonspecific reaction occurs when an extremely powerful stimulus acts on the body. Some consider stress as a generalized tension reaction due to the action of factors threatening the body, requiring intensive mobilization of adaptogenic mechanisms, significantly exceeding the range of everyday fluctuations. Others classify as stress only those reactions that are characterized by overstrain of psychological and adaptive mechanisms. It seems that such extreme points of view are characteristic of experimenters, for whom the criterion is obvious morpho-functional changes in visceral organs or mental disorders that are more suitable for distress or the pathology caused by it.
Certain mental and psychosomatic disorders that occur in a person depend on the nature of the current stressor, its strength and duration of action, as well as on the stress reactivity of the body itself. Stress reactivity is a genetically determined feature of neuroendocrine mechanisms to respond to stressors.
The term “stress” proposed by doctors, it would seem, is not built into the system of psychological knowledge. However, if we consider the dynamics of changes in the stress state under the influence of stressors of varying strength, it turns out that the curve describing these changes completely coincides with the change in the level of wakefulness. It is known that a person’s behavior is more effective the closer his level of wakefulness is to some optimal level. At higher values, the subject’s readiness for action and his behavior become increasingly disorganized. At low values, this readiness to act is reduced and can lead to sleep. And if we take into account biorhythmological data on daily changes in the content of certain hormones, it becomes clear that the neuroendocrine mechanisms that control a certain level of stress determine this or that level of wakefulness. There is a direct relationship: the lower the stress level, the lower the level of wakefulness and vice versa.
The diversity of opinions regarding terminology makes it important to identify objective criteria for stress. It is believed that the main criteria for the occurrence of a stress reaction should be objective, significant changes in the heart rhythmogram, the Baevsky index, a stable change in the tonic component of the galvanic skin response and the appearance of increased doses of catecholamines in the blood, and an excess of cortisol in the blood. It is usually believed that brain catecholamines, acting as neurohormones (local brain hormones), play an initiating role in the further development of the stress response. Adrenaline and norepinephrine enhance the release of releasing factors in the hypothalamus. And this leads, in turn, to increased production of adenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), etc.
The proposed criteria make it possible to state the onset of the stress reaction in its first (according to Selye) phase - the tension phase, when the work of these stress mechanisms is not affected by pathology or exhaustion of the executive mechanisms.
For later phases of the development of a stress reaction, when the body is on the verge of normality and pathology (borderline states), systems of group characteristics developed by a number of authors are suitable:
1. Clinical - personal and reactive anxiety, decreased emotional stability.
2. Psychological - decreased self-esteem, level of social adaptation and frustration tolerance.
3. Physiological - predominance of the tone of the sympathetic nervous system over the parasympathetic, changes in hemodynamics.
4. Endocrine - increased activity of the sympathetic-adrenal and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal systems.
5. Metabolic - an increase in transport forms of fat in the blood, a shift in the lipoprotein spectrum towards atherogenic fractions.
Thus, considering the definitions of stress existing in the literature, it should be assumed that the term “stress” does not define a reaction, but a state of homeostasis to ensure the necessary human activity in certain conditions environment. Stress reaction is a change in the level of activity under the influence of certain stressors. Distress is an overstrain of neuroendocrine mechanisms that causes disruption of the activity (functional or morphological) of various structures of the body, leading to the development of borderline states and psychosomatic diseases.
3. Hans Selye
stress affect adaptive
Hans Selye is a Canadian endocrinologist of Austro-Hungarian origin.
Biography.
Hans Selye was born in 1907 into the family of a doctor who had his own surgical clinic in the city of Komárno (Austria-Hungary). After the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the town ended up on the territory of Czechoslovakia, and it was in this country that Selye received his education - at the medical faculty of the University of Prague. He then continued his studies in Rome and Paris.
In post-war Europe, Selye did not find a place for himself and emigrated overseas, where he headed the Institute of Experimental Medicine and Surgery (now the International Institute of Stress).
Back in Prague, while working at the university clinic for infectious diseases, Selye noticed that the first manifestations of various infections are exactly the same; differences appear after a few days, but the initial symptoms are the same.
At the same time, he began to develop his hypothesis of the general adaptation syndrome, according to which the pathogenic factor has a triggering effect, including adaptation mechanisms developed in the process of evolution.
Selye viewed physiological stress as a response to any demands placed on the body, and believed that no matter what difficulty the body faces, it can be dealt with by two types of reactions: active, or struggle, and passive, or flight from difficulties or readiness to endure them.
Selye did not consider stress to be harmful, but viewed it as a reaction that helps the body survive.
In 1960, students of I.P. Pavlov - academician P.K. Anokhin and E.A. Asratyan invited G. Selye to Moscow to give a report at a meeting of the Moscow Physiological Society. The report aroused great interest. Members of the staff of the Department of Physiology of the 1st and 2nd Medical Institutes, as well as physiologists from Moscow State University and other research and educational institutions listened to him with enthusiasm.
In the following days, he visited the Department of Physiology of the First Moscow Medical Institute, headed by Academician P.K. Anokhin, where he was given a warm welcome. The next day, G. Selye was a guest of the department of the same name at the Second Moscow Medical Institute, headed by academician E.A. Asratyan. It should be noted that G. Selye’s report, his imaginatively and vividly presented ideas, made an indelible impression on the audience. It was possible to avoid wide publicity of this event and communication with the scientist took place in the calm atmosphere of E. A. Asratyan’s office.
The interest of the listeners prompted G. Selye, without being limited in time, to tell “over a cup of coffee” (not without Armenian cognac), along with scientific provisions, and incidents from his life (and all in Russian!).
This meeting is captured on the presented unique photography. Among the participants in the meeting between Hans Selye and Academician E. A. Asratyan were also the future Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences P. V. Simonov, the future head of the Department of Physiology, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences Professor G. I. Kositsky, Professor of the Department of Normal Physiology of the RUDN University S. A. Chesnokova and other students of Asratyan.
According to the memoirs of S. A. Chesnokova, G. Selye left everyone with the impression of not only a great thinker, but also an affable person with interesting, extraordinary thinking, completely immersed in his inner world.
Features of the manifestation of stress in people of different age groups
It's not just work that can cause stress. Stress is often associated with a person’s belonging to a particular age group. Of course, childhood, youth stress and stress of people old age The reasons that cause them vary, but the symptoms are similar in most cases.
Childhood and teenage stress.
Children generally seem less stressed than adults because they are more cheerful. But without showing physical symptoms—even though they do occur—children react to stress with obvious emotional and behavioral problems. The presence of such problems can clearly indicate that the child is experiencing stress. Frequent tears, withdrawal, and unexplained aggression are very common signs of stress.
Parents should also be alert to other symptoms, the appearance of which indicates severe trauma inflicted on the child and that he is experiencing a stressful situation.
Physical signs:
1. sleep disturbance, insomnia, sleepwalking, excessive sleep (hypersomnia);
2.problems with food or weight (overweight or underweight);
3. frequent crying for no reason;
4.grinding of teeth in a dream or in reality;
Behavioral signs:
1.return to behavior of an earlier age;
Features of stress in old age.
Awareness of the fact of aging in itself is sometimes stressful. People who are not mentally prepared for the fact that at a certain age changes will occur in their appearance and lifestyle, turning a blind eye to the obvious signs of aging, have to experience severe stress when there is no escape from this unpleasant truth. It is especially difficult if the process of awareness coincides with problems in your personal life: the departure of children, separation from a loved one - his death or leaving for a younger person, forced retirement, dismissal from work due to staff reduction, and so on.
Physical changes - the appearance of wrinkles, diseases that have become chronic - often have a serious impact on a person’s state of mind.
Older people typically experience two types of stress - those natural to aging and those created by their environment. Stresses from illness, personal loss, reduced income, retirement and poor housing intertwine with social stresses such as neglect and neglect, and lead to isolation, loneliness and depression.
One of the greatest physiological stresses is realizing that the ability of the vast majority of aging people to learn and perform mental work has not changed. Nevertheless, both in society and at work they begin to be treated with prejudice. This severe moral shock causes depression, which is the most common mental disorder among the elderly.
Middle age crisis.
By the age of 30-40, the so-called middle of life, it is customary to take stock of what we have achieved in life. Often, understanding the fact that half of the allotted years have already been lived and a person has not achieved any special heights becomes a cause of serious stress. For many, the period between 30 and 40 years can be traumatic.
The initial reaction to the onset of middle age differs greatly between men and women.
Experts believe that men are more likely to experience anxiety, worry, feelings of inadequacy and are more likely to become depressed due to the fact that they fail to reach their target age.
The differences between how they planned their life and their position in it - social, material, family - and what exists in reality are often quite large. Men may become discouraged about their careers, which they feel are going nowhere or are no longer as fulfilling. Work, which until recently was joyful, now, under the influence of overwhelming thoughts about one’s own worthlessness and uselessness, causes irritation. And in their despondency, men do not dare to start some other business, even one that promises undoubted benefits, because they believe that they are too old for this and, most likely, are doomed to pull the hated burden until the end of their days. Of course, such thoughts do not add optimism.
Women, on the contrary, experience more joy and a sense of self-realization during these years. They tend to be less anxious, less lonely, and much more positive about themselves and their future.
All these differences disappear when average age comes to the end. Both men and women by the age of 50-55 go through the worst stages of middle age, become much wiser, already know how to cope with most problems, they do not experience personal disappointments as acutely as in their teenage years. Although, of course, it cannot be said that the end of middle age is completely protected from stressful situations.
4. Physiological and emotional stress. Syndromes, subsyndromes and stress resistance
Physical stress response syndrome is universal model defensive reactions aimed at preserving the integrity of the body. It is the same for both humans and animals. The difference between humans is that the reaction can be determined not only by the presence of a stressor, but also by its psychological impact on the individual. Thus, in relation to a person, the specificity of stress consists in the conscious processing of negative emotions with the participation of mental defense mechanisms.
Stress is divided into Physiological and Emotional. Whatever the stress, physiological stress often serves as a source of emotional stress, and emotional stress undoubtedly entails physiological stress.
Emotional stress.
In this case, the factor that causes tension in the body to levels exceeding normal adaptive reactions is the anticipation of damage due to the onset of an action or a predicted unfavorable factor. Thus, emotional stress does not occur if the situation is not perceived by the person as dangerous. The perception and assessment of a situation are closely related to cognitive processes, personality traits and a person’s previous experiences. A mandatory attribute is anxiety, then fear, then panic.
Physiological stress.
It appears as follows; in the early stages of emotional stress, the connection between various functional systems of the human body is disrupted and they begin to work in isolation, intensely, trying to independently maintain indicators at the optimal level.
Development of a stressful situation.
Whatever the cause of stress, the same physical symptoms occur in the human body. Adaptive mechanisms activated in the human body when exposed to stress are called general adaptation syndrome or stress response.
Three stages of development of the syndrome:
1. Alarm stage (emergency). The body's initial response to danger or threat occurs in order to help us cope with the situation. Traditionally, the stages of anxiety are divided into shock and anti-shock stages. During the shock phase, hormones are released into the blood, the pulse quickens, and the liver produces more sugar. Since in this phase the body’s resources are not used sparingly, after some time this becomes a threat to the body’s vital functions, the anti-shock phase begins, during which the first mechanisms that reduce the impact of stress are activated.
2. Stage of resistance (resistance). Occurs if the stress factor is too strong or continues to act for a sufficiently long period of time. A stable adaptation to changing circumstances occurs: the activity of physiological processes decreases sharply; all resources are used optimally.
3. Stage of exhaustion. Occurs with prolonged exposure to a stress factor. But at this stage, the energy is exhausted, physiological and mental defenses are broken, persistent maladaptive disorders occur, and death is possible.
Emotional subsyndromes of stress:
1. Emotionally behavioral. Acute stress reactions are aimed at protecting the body and survival.
2. Vegetative. Mobilization of the body occurs, accompanied by increased attention and activity.
3. Cognitive. Changes in mental activity.
4. Socio-psychological. Changing communication in a stressful situation.
Stress resistance.
Stress resistance is the body’s resistance (emotional and physiological) to the effects of stress factors.
Physiological characteristics that provide stress resistance:
1. Type of nervous system
2. Hormonal features.
Personal traits that contribute to stress resistance:
1. Level of self-esteem.
2. Level of subjective control.
3. Level of personal anxiety.
5. Stressful events
In order to understand our psychological reactions in life-threatening situations, we need to learn more about stress. Stress is not a disease that can be cured; each of us experiences stress from time to time. Stress is a reaction to tension, a feeling resulting from a physical, emotional, mental and spiritual response to life's difficulties. Any event can cause stress, and as anyone has experienced, such events do not always come alone. Often stressful events happen at the same time. They are not stress in themselves, but they cause it and are therefore called stressors. Stress is a response to stressors. Once the body recognizes the presence of a stressor, it tries to protect itself.
When experiencing stress, the body strives to either overcome it or get rid of it. The body sends an internal SOS signal. When the organs respond to it, various reactions occur. The body releases stored fuel (sugars and fats) to quickly provide energy; breathing accelerates to saturate the blood with oxygen; muscles tense to be ready for action. The blood clotting mechanism is activated to prevent severe bleeding, the senses are heightened (hearing becomes clearer, pupils dilate, sense of smell becomes sharper) in order to be alert; Heart rate and blood pressure increase to provide more blood flow to the muscles. This state allows the body to cope with potential dangers, but the body cannot maintain this level of alertness indefinitely.
Stressors are not very kind to us - the appearance of another stressor does not mean the disappearance of the old one, they overlap each other. The cumulative effect of minor stressors can lead to significant distress. The body's resistance gradually decreases, and sources of stress continue to act, which leads to exhaustion. At this point, the ability to extract positive effects from stress dries up, and signs of an anxiety disorder appear. Preventing stress and developing stress management strategies are two ingredients for effective stress management. Therefore, knowing what stressors you may encounter is extremely important. Let's look at some of them.
Injury, illness and death.
Injury, illness or death is something that a person trying to survive can quite realistically face. There is perhaps nothing more stressful than being alone in an unfamiliar environment and facing the threat of death from attack or accident. Injury or illness can increase stress, limiting your ability to move around, obtain food and water, find shelter, and defend yourself. Even if illness and injury do not lead to death, stress will increase due to pain and discomfort. Only by controlling the stress associated with vulnerability to injury, illness, and death can one gain enough courage to face the dangers associated with survival.
Uncertainty and loss of control.
Some people have difficulty operating in an environment where everything is not clear. In a life-threatening situation there is only one guarantee: nothing can be guaranteed. Actions in a situation where information about the environment and control over it are limited lead to enormous stress. Uncertainty and loss of control are compounded by the stress of being injured, sick, or killed.
Environment.
Even with ideal conditions nature is very formidable. Trying to survive, a person struggles with the stressors of weather, terrain, and the diversity of creatures inhabiting the territory. Heat or cold, rain, wind, mountains, swamps, deserts, insects, dangerous reptiles and other animals are just some of the threats that await humans. Depending on how well a person can cope with the stress of the environment, it can either be a source of water and protection, or a cause of extreme discomfort, leading to injury, illness or death.
Hunger and thirst.
Without water and food, the body weakens and ultimately dies. Thus, supplies of food and water become increasingly important as time passes in a life-threatening situation. For a person who has used up his supplies, searching for food becomes a significant source of stress.
Fatigue.
The more you try to survive, the more tired you become. It is likely that fatigue may reach a point where constant vigilance becomes a stressor.
Insulation.
There are certain advantages to being part of a team when faced with danger. Contact with other people provides a sense of security, a feeling that someone will come to the rescue if a problem arises. A significant stressor is that an individual or team must rely on their own strengths.
This is not a complete list of stressors you may face. Remember, what is stress for one may not be stress for another. Your experience, training, personal outlook, physical and psychological preparation, self-confidence will affect what you feel creates tension. The task is not to avoid stress, but to successfully cope with stressors and make them work for you.
Conclusion
Since stress has many positive effects, we need it. Stress challenges us, thereby giving us a chance to discover our strengths and strengths. Stress shows our ability to cope with difficulties, tests our adaptability and flexibility, and motivates us to give our best. Since we usually don't view minor incidents as difficulties, stress is an excellent indicator of the significance of the event to us; in other words, it indicates the importance of the event.
We need some stress, but too much of it can be harmful. The goal should be tension, but not overexertion. Too much stress leads to anxiety. Anxiety causes tension, which we try to get rid of and which we prefer to avoid. Below are some symptoms of anxiety that you may notice in yourself or others when you are under extreme stress:
Difficulty in making decisions
· Outbursts of rage
· Forgetfulness
Lack of energy
· Constant anxiety
· Prone to mistakes
· Thoughts about death or suicide
· Removal from others
· Avoidance of responsibility
· Negligence
As you can see, stress can be constructive and destructive. It can encourage or discourage, move us forward or stop us, make life seem meaningful or seem meaningless. Stress can inspire you to take successful and effective action in a life-threatening situation. It can also cause panic and make you forget all your skills. The key to survival is the ability to cope with inevitable stress. A survivor is one who works on his stress, rather than letting stress work on him.
List of sources used
1. Arsentiev, D. 21st century - the era of stress, statistics [electronic resource] http://www.openmindblog.ru/stress_1/
2. Gazenko, O. G. Dictionary of physiological terms / O. G. Gazenko. M.: Nauka, 1987.- 445 p.
3. Kandror, V.I. Biography of Hans Selye [electronic resource] http://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/bse/131284/
4. Orlov, Yu. Stress and stressor [electronic resource] http://marina-dorih.ru/2010/10/07/
5. Selye, G. At the level of the whole organism / G. Selye. M.: Nauka, 1972.- 122 p.
6. Selye, G. Essays on the adaptation syndrome / G. Selye. M.: Medgiz, 1960.- 255 p.
7. Shcherbatykh, Yu. V. Psychology of Stress / Yu. V. Shcherbatykh. M.: Eksmo, 2008.- 304 p.
8. Elkin, Alain Stress for dummies / Alain Elkin. M.: Williams, 2006.- 320 p.
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Basic characteristics of stress, its causes and consequences. Hans Selye and his followers. Physiological and psychological understanding of stress. Ways to regulate emotional states. Exercises for concentration. Modern views for stress.
Introduction
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2Reflection of stressors in activities
2.1 Physiological research method
Conclusion
Bibliography
Introduction
Stress - this term is used to refer to a wide range of conditions that arise in response to a variety of extreme influences.
This concept was first introduced by psychologist G. Selye to denote a nonspecific reaction of the body in response to any adverse impact.
Later it began to be used in psychology to describe the states of an individual under extreme conditions at the physiological, psychological and behavioral levels.
Depending on the type of influences and the nature of their influences, stress in psychology is classified into several types: physiological stress and psychological stress. Moreover, the latter is divided into: informational stress and emotional stress.
Information stress occurs in situations of information overload, when the subject cannot cope with any task, does not have time to make decisions at the required pace - with high responsibility for the decisions made and their consequences.
Emotional stress manifests itself in situations of threat, danger, resentment... At the same time, changes occur in emotional states(hysterics often occur), in speech and motor behavior (“loses the power of speech,” “stood rooted to the spot”).
However, stress can also have a positive, mobilizing effect on activity - distress.
In this case, a person is able to solve many security-related problems in an instant, find non-standard approaches. At such moments, you feel a surge of strength and energy coming from nowhere. And although a long stay in this state is extremely undesirable and dangerous for the body, for many it is a great opportunity to stay in good shape.
Factors causing stress
1The concept and essence of stress, types of stressors
According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, stress (from the English stress - “pressure, tension”) is a state of an individual that arises as a response to various extreme types of influence from the external and internal environment that unbalance physical or psychological functions person.
The author of the doctrine of stress, G. Selye, wrote: “Stress is life, and life is stress. Without stress, life is practically impossible.” At the same time, an indispensable condition for a free and independent life, according to Claude Bernard, is the constancy of the internal environment, and according to V. Cannon, the body’s ability to maintain this constancy (homeostasis, homeostasis, homeokinesis, that is, dynamic constancy). Taking into account this view of life, stress is a state of temporarily disturbed homeostasis, and stressors are various factors that can cause disruption of the body’s homeostasis. Stressors are any new, sufficiently informative, especially personally significant, and stimuli of varying intensity, duration and nature (quality) that can cause disturbances in the body’s homeostasis of varying severity.
So, let’s define that stress is a nonspecific (general) reaction of the body to an impact (physical or psychological) that disrupts its homeostasis, as well as the corresponding state of the body’s nervous system (or the body as a whole).
Factors that cause a stress response are called stressors. They can be physical (high and low temperature, poison, excessive physical activity, etc.) and psychological (conflict situation in the family, death loved one, resentment, information overload, etc.).
Stressor (from the English stress - pressure, pressure, pressure, oppression, load, tension; synonyms: stress factor, stress situation) - a factor that causes a state of stress. A nonspecific irritant or stress-inducing influence.
Stressors can be external (exogenous) and internal (endogenous, i.e. formed in the body itself). By nature, stressful stimuli can be very different: physical, chemical, biological, informational, psychogenic and emotional.
An important place among physical, chemical and biological stressors (group 1) is occupied by mechanical, chemical and infectious influences, lack or excess of food, water, oxygen, carbon dioxide, cations, anions, salts, PAS and other substances that cause damage to cell-tissue structures and disturbances of homeostasis at various levels of organization of the body. Their main characteristic is the absoluteness (intensity) of the impact. Thus, the stressogenicity of these factors is determined by the quantitative characteristics and degree of disruption of the body’s homeostasis.
Social (informational, psychogenic and emotional) stressors (group 2) are characterized by both absoluteness (quantity) and relativity (quality) of influences in the form of unfavorable effects for the body, especially conflict ones (at work, at home, in the family, etc.) situations. Moreover, modern life not only increases this group of stressors on a person, but also often does not provide opportunities to avoid the effects of these stressors on the body, forcing it to adapt to them.
Conventionally, stressors can be divided into:
)controlled (depend on us);
)uncontrollable (out of our control);
)those that are not inherently stressors, but cause a stress response as a result of our interpretation of the factor as a stressor.
The key to coping well with stress is the ability to distinguish between stressors that we can control and stressors that we cannot control. The most common manageable stressors are interpersonal in nature. People's behavior is often determined by factors of health and illness. Stereotypes of behavior, unconscious actions, inability to manage one’s emotions, lack of knowledge of norms interpersonal relationships, inability to manage conflict can become a source of stress.
A person under stress is capable of incredible (compared to a calm state) actions: at the moment of stress, a large amount of adrenaline is released into the blood, all the body’s reserves are mobilized and a person’s capabilities increase sharply, but only for a certain time.
The duration of this period and the consequences for the body are different for each person. In general, it is believed that small and short-term stress can even be useful for performing work and is harmless to a person, while long-term and significant stress can lead to various undesirable consequences. According to research by physiologists, if stress lasts a month or a year and has already become the cause of any disease, it is almost impossible to return the physiological functions of the body to normal.
The most common forms of stressors:
)physiological (excessive pain, loud noise, exposure to extreme temperatures, taking certain medications, such as caffeine or amphetamines);
)psychological (information overload, competition, threat to social status, self-esteem, immediate environment, etc.).
Types of stressors:
)fear;
)hunger;
)thirst;
)pain;
)fatigue;
)insulation.
Factors that cause stress are the impact on a person from the external and internal environment, which leads him to a state of stress. The main factors influencing the occurrence of human stress in an organization: organizational, intra-organizational, personal.
Organizational factors are determined by the position of the individual in the organization, in particular, the lack of work corresponding to his qualifications; poor relations with employees; lack of growth prospects, competition in the workplace, etc.
Let's look at examples organizational factors:
)insufficient workload of the employee, for which the employee does not have the opportunity to fully demonstrate his qualifications;
A situation that is quite common in domestic organizations that have switched to a reduced work schedule or are forced to reduce the amount of work due to non-payment by customers;
)the employee does not have a good understanding of his role and place in the production process, the team; this situation is usually caused by the lack of clearly established rights and responsibilities of a specialist, task ambiguity, and lack of growth prospects;
)the need to simultaneously perform various tasks that are not related to each other, but urgent, this reason is often found among middle managers in an organization in the absence of delineation of functions between departments and levels of management;
)non-participation of employees in the management of the organization, decision-making on further development activities of an organization during a period of a sharp change in the directions of its activity, this situation is typical for a significant number of large domestic enterprises, where the personnel management system has not been established and ordinary employees are disconnected from the decision-making process.
Many Western companies have entire programs for attracting personnel to the affairs of the company and developing strategic decisions, especially when it is necessary to increase production volume or improve the quality of manufactured products.
Changing the tasks of a hired worker after moving to work in private structures, this worker realizes his main task is to increase the profit of the owner of this company.
Intraorganizational factors cause stress as a result of the following circumstances:
)lack of work or a long search for it;
)competition in the labor market;
)the crisis state of the economy of the country and the region in particular;
)family difficulties.
Personal factors that cause stress begin to act under the influence of unfulfilled individual needs, emotional instability, low or high self-esteem, etc.
There are quite a large number of types of stress.
Chronic stress presupposes the presence of constant (or one that exists for a long time) significant physical and moral stress on a person (long-term job search, constant success, clarification of relationships), as a result of which his neuropsychological or physiological state is extremely tense.
Acute stress is a person’s state after an event or phenomenon, as a result of which he lost his psychological balance (conflict with his boss, quarrels with loved ones).
Physiological stress arises from physical overload of the body and exposure to harmful environmental factors (high or low temperature in the work area, strong odors, insufficient lighting, increased noise levels).
Psychological stress is a consequence of a violation of the psychological stability of the individual for a number of reasons: offended pride, work without appropriate qualifications.
In addition, such stress can be the result of a person’s psychological overload: performing too much work and responsibility for the quality of complex and lengthy work. A variant of psychological stress is emotional stress that occurs in situations of threat, danger, or resentment.
Information stress occurs in situations of information overload or from an information vacuum.
In addition, today there is a so-called “managerial type of stress”; it is caused by many factors related to the activities of managers and their relationships with people in complex market conditions.
When the environment and market conditions change dynamically, competition intensifies, and therefore it is necessary to take prompt and adequate management decisions to ensure sustainable development of the enterprise and its competitiveness.
For a legal assessment of a person’s behavior under stress, it should be borne in mind that in a state of stress, a person’s consciousness may not narrow - a person may be able to mobilize his physical and mental capabilities to the maximum to overcome extreme impacts in reasonable ways.
Human behavior under stress is not completely relegated to an unconscious level. His actions to eliminate the stressor, the choice of tools and methods of action, speech means preserve social conditioning. A narrowing of consciousness during affect and stress does not mean its complete disorder.
2 Reflection of stressors in activities
psychological stress
It is very important to learn how to cope with your stress yourself, and the key point is to determine as accurately as possible what kind of stressor you encountered, and only after that take certain measures.
It is important to remember here that the stressor itself is only a reason for the onset of stress, and we ourselves make it the cause of the neuropsychic experience. For example, a “C” for a student who has never opened his textbook in the entire semester is happiness; for a student who is used to working as hard as he can, a satisfactory grade is the norm, but for an excellent student, an accidental C grade can be a real tragedy. In other words, there is one stressor, and the reaction to it varies from despair to delight, so it is very important to learn to control your attitude towards troubles and select adequate methods to deal with them.
Stressors that are beyond our control are prices, taxes, government, weather, habits and personalities of other people, and much more. You may be nervous and swear about a power outage or an incompetent driver creating a traffic jam at an intersection, but other than increasing your blood pressure and adrenaline concentrations in your blood, you will not achieve anything.
Participation in conflict situations is often accompanied by increased stress in a person. The conflict represents difficult relationships between opponents, marked by strong emotional experiences. Participation in a conflict involves the expenditure of emotions, nerves, and strength, and this can lead to one-time or chronic stress. At the same time, an inadequate perception of the situation that occurs through stressful state one of its participants, quite often leads to conflicts.
For example: the head of a department stood in a traffic jam for a long time on the way to work, being late for an important meeting in the organization. As a result, the employees of the unit - his subordinates - were reprimanded for sins that did not occur. (There was a transfer of negative emotions from an external situation, beyond the control of a person, to an internal one).
Stress, just like conflict, is closely related to human needs and the inability to realize them, and this leads to a manifold increase in the action of psychological defense mechanisms and physiological capabilities.
In general, stress is a fairly common and common phenomenon. Minor stress is inevitable and harmless, but excessive stress creates problems for both the individual and the organization in completing assigned tasks. Psychologists believe that a person suffers more and more often from insults inflicted on him, a sense of his own insecurity, and uncertainty about the future.
Example. The subordinate does not agree with the opinion of the boss, he insists and forces him to do as he sees fit. Although the issue is extremely important for the subordinate, he is not able to convince the boss, and it is not yet possible to leave for another job, then the employee gives in and submits.
As a result, the subordinate is in a state of intrapersonal conflict, which results in his stressful state. If the subordinate is confident that he is right and insists on it, then a conflict will certainly arise with the boss, which may result in the dismissal of this employee from the organization.
Conflict situations are often accompanied by strong feelings that turn into stress. Skillful stress management allows you to prevent conflicts, and if they arise, to resolve them competently.
Small and short-term stress can only slightly affect a person, but long-term and (or) significant stress unbalances his physiological and psychological functions, negatively affects health, performance, work efficiency and relationships in the team (in this case it is called distress).
Stressors that we can directly influence are our own unconstructive actions, inability to life goals and identify priorities, inability to manage one's time, and various difficulties in interpersonal interactions. As a rule, these stressors are in the present time or in the near future, and we, in principle, have a chance to influence the situation). If we encounter just such a stressor, then it is very important to determine what resource we lack, and then take care of finding it.
Stressors that cause stress only because of our interpretation are those events and phenomena that we ourselves turn into problems. Most often, such an event is either in the past or in the future, and its occurrence is unlikely. This can include all types of anxiety about the future (from the obsessive thought “Did I turn off the iron?” to the fear of death), as well as worries about past events that we cannot change. Often this type of stress also occurs in the event of an incorrect interpretation of current events, but in any case, the assessment of the situation is more influenced by the individual’s attitudes than by real facts.
In everyday life, we call various events that affect us negatively as stress. But do we know how much stress there is in the life of a modern person?
So, what are the types of stress?
)information stress. In our modern society, the amount of information bombarding us has long gone beyond all reasonable limits. Television, the Internet - these means have made such volumes of information available that it causes overload;
)information aggression. The same media, as a rule, speculate in pursuit of ratings, pouring on us huge amounts of information that awakens negative emotions (fear, anxiety, etc.). This is understandable - it’s easier for them to chain us to the screens. And we buy it;
)stress of brain processing of information. There is a lot of information, the brain is actively working, trying to “sort it out.” In this case, mainly the left hemisphere is involved. At the same time, the right one is idle, and the interhemispheric balance is disturbed. There is a deficiency of natural trance.
Because of this deficiency, the so-called Frankl trinity (famous Austrian psychotherapist) arises:
)depression;
)aggression;
)addiction;
Motor stress. It is believed that a person should normally walk 10 thousand steps every day. Let's think how far we go?? The answer is clear. But when walking, the active points of the foot are stimulated, blood flow throughout the body increases, and the working muscles keep the brain in good shape!
Stress of speed and distance. We are designed in such a way that it is unnatural for us to move at a speed greater than we can develop ourselves. And the only physiological distances for us are those that we could cover on foot. This also includes the reaction to time zone changes, which is called desynchronosis. All physiological rhythms are disrupted!
Stress of a city dweller. This is what is meant here. The entire environment of a big city is, in general, unnatural for humans. Artificial lighting forcibly extends the length of the day - previously people went to bed at sunset. Staying at a height of more than the third floor is also stressful - after all, in the wild, no person lived at such heights. People mostly looked into the distance, watching birds fly and herds graze, but now there is constant visual stress. There is constant noise in the city, which was not the case in the natural human habitat.
Emotional stress. We have to admit that in modern society it is a gift that people live in crowded conditions. But warm, emotional contact is missing. Communication between people is often superficial and formal.
The stress of constant change. Everything is changing rapidly in today's world. What previously seemed stable and unshakable can collapse in an instant! There is no confidence in the future, especially with the growing financial and economic crises. This condition is one of the biggest stressors for a person.
Work stress is an important issue in the modern workplace. About a third of workers are susceptible to it. A quarter of workers say their job is a stressor in their lives. Three-quarters of workers believe that work was not as stressful in the past (that is, a generation ago). Many also recognize that stress is main reason staff turnover.
Work stress is caused by working conditions. It is debatable whether the working conditions or the personal characteristics of the worker have a greater influence. Different answers to this question give rise to different ways of solving the problem. If we assume that personal characteristics More importantly, adaptability and communication skills come to the fore. It is assumed that these skills will help the employee adapt even to less good conditions labor. This perspective emphasizes the importance of strategies to help workers adjust to changes in working conditions.
I could go on and on about all the possible sources of stress—I have named the main ones. It is important to understand that all these influences do not pass without a trace for people. Stress tends to accumulate.
Stress is a response to changes in our lives. Our body reacts physically, emotionally and mentally to any change in the existing state of affairs. Moreover, changes do not have to be negative; positive changes can also be quite stressful. Sometimes the thought of upcoming changes can be stressful.
It is important to learn to remain calm and self-possessed. The first person who needs anti-stress help is you!
2.Methodological aspects of studying stress
1 Physiological research method
Stress is one of the adaptation mechanisms in the human body in response to stressors of any nature, including psychological ones. The criteria for stress are objective indicators of the nervous, endocrine and visceral systems (cardiovascular, skin, etc.)
According to V.D. Nebylitsina, the stability of the optimal operating parameters of the subject depends on factors of a personal nature:
) the state of internal organs and, above all, the cardiovascular system, visual and hearing acuity, autonomic reaction;
) dynamics of the properties of the nervous system: strength and balance;
) actual psychological factors - characterological characteristics of the individual.
Physiological research methods make it possible to consider stress as a fluctuation in homeostatic processes with mandatory consideration of the social conditionality of biological adaptation. Measurements should be taken at the same time, after sleep before work load, because... it is necessary to register trace processes in changes in functions.
The health quotient (HC), or functional change index (FII), is intended to assess the level of functioning of the circulatory system and determine the adaptive potential of the latter. It was proposed by A.P. Berseneva and R.M. Baevsky, the authors propose to consider changes in heart rate in connection with the adaptive reaction whole organism as a manifestation of various stages of the general adaptation syndrome.
IFI (KZ) is determined in conventional units - points. To calculate the IFI (KZ), data on pulse rate (HR), blood pressure (BPs - systolic, ABP - diastolic), height (P), body weight (BW) and age (B) are required.
Calculated using formula 1.
Formula 1
Based on the obtained value of the Baevsky index, each subject can be assigned to one of four groups according to the degree of adaptation: satisfactory adaptation (FII less than 2.59), strain of adaptation mechanisms (FII from 2.6 to 3.09), unsatisfactory adaptation (FII 3 .1 to 3.49) and failure of adaptation (FII more than 3.5). The higher the IFI value, the higher the likelihood of tension in adaptation mechanisms.
Let's calculate personal data using the formula: emergency rate - 76 beats/min., blood pressure - 110 mm. Hg, ABP - 80 mmHg, P - 172 m, BW - 85 kg, B - 24 years.
IFI =0.011*76+0.014*110+0.008*80+0.014*24+0.009*85-0.009*172-0.27
IFI = 2.229, therefore satisfactory adaptation of the body.
2 Stressful Life Events Scale
The Stressful Life Events Scale was proposed by T. Holmes and R. Reich in 1967. Despite the empirical nature of the methodology, its undoubted advantages are: 1) taking into account the total level of psychosocial stress, i.e., the global mass of events and the degree of their severity, and not individual events, as was the case before; 2) taking into account everyday, frequently occurring factors, rather than disasters and other extraordinary events; 3) the study of a person in everyday life, and not in the laboratory 4) an idea of a change in the social situation this person, and not the social situation as such; 5) a study of the impact of events closely spaced in time, rather than childhood psychogenics.
Using the scale below (Figure 1), try to remember all the events that happened during the last year and calculate the total number of points you “earned.” You may be thinking of other events that are not included in this scale (eg, flood, home renovation, robbery). How many points would you assign to these events and add them to the points received on the scale.
In accordance with the studies, it was found that 150 points means a 50% chance of a somatic disease occurring due to stress, with 300 points it increases to 90%.
Figure 1 - Stressful life events scale
Let's make a scale of stressful life events using a personal example.
Let us present the result in Table 1.
Table 1 - Scale of stressful life events by Zaikova O.P.
Life eventsValue of the event in pointsDeath of a close family member100Appointment of a new family member56Change in financial situation42Change in position18Start of studies at an educational institution23Change of place of residence9Loan to buy things13Vacation11New Year12
The total result is 289 points. We conclude that the likelihood of a somatic disease occurring as a result of stress is very high.
Conclusion
In everyday life, a person constantly finds himself in different situations. Among their many, those that we designate as stressful situations stand out.
All living organisms capable of interacting with the environment are equally susceptible to stress. Stress is a tense state of the body, i.e. a nonspecific response of the body to a demand presented to it (stressful situation). The stress response is aimed at adapting the body to changing conditions of the internal and external environment. The adaptive resources of the body differ from person to person and, accordingly, the ability to restore them also differs individually. The influence of the same stressor on different people differs in the degree of severity of stress in terms of the strength of its influence on the adaptive capabilities of the individual. Under the influence of stress, the human body experiences stressful tension, and stress is not just nervous tension, but also nervous overload and strong emotional arousal.
The consequences of stress include emotional reactions, for example, inappropriate, overreaction to minor problems, excessive irritability and intolerance, as well as overeating or lack of appetite, increased use of alcohol, tobacco or medications, a feeling of constant anxiety, and an inability to relax. Stress has many faces in its manifestations. It plays an important role in the occurrence of not only disorders of human mental activity or a number of diseases of internal organs. It is known that stress can provoke almost any disease. In this regard, there is currently an increasing need to learn more about stress and ways to prevent and cope with it.
Bibliography
1.Personal page of practical psychologist Koval E.P. - Electronic data. - Access mode: #"justify">. Grechikhin A.A. Sociology and psychology of reading: textbook for universities / A.A. Grechikhin - M: MGUP, 2007 - 383 p.
.Free encyclopedia Wikipedia - Electronic data. - Access mode: #"justify">. Panchenko L.L. Diagnosis of stress: textbook/L.L. Panchenko - Vladivostok: Mor. state univ., 2005 - 35 p.
.Csikszentmihalyi M. Sociology and psychology of management / M. Csikszentmihalyi, Elena Perova. - M: Alpina non-fiction, 2011 - 555 p.
.Page of practicing psychotherapist Eremeev - Electron. Dan. - Access mode: #"justify">. BrainTools.ru - Electron. Dan. - Access mode:://www.braintools.ru/article/9548
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Under stress factors - stressors(stress factors) - understand a set of stimuli influencing the psychophysical state of a person and his behavior. They are also defined as any external stimuli or events, that cause mental stress or agitation in a person. In psychology, stressors are unfavorable, significant in strength and duration external and internal influences, leading to the occurrence of stressful conditions.
In psychophysiology, a stressor (stress factor, stress situation) is an extreme or pathological stimulus, an adverse effect of significant strength and duration that causes stress. A stimulus becomes a stressor either due to the meaning a person assigns to it (cognitive interpretation), or through lower brain sensory mechanisms, through the mechanisms of digestion and metabolism.
Stressors include: danger, threat, pressure, severe physical and mental trauma, blood loss, heavy physical, mental and communication stress, infections, ionizing radiation, sudden temperature changes, many pharmacological effects, abdominal surgical interventions, extreme situations and other factors. In a number of classifications, they include largely similar psychological states- conflict and frustration.
Exist various classifications of stressors, in which they are divided into physiological stressors (excessive pain and noise, exposure to extreme temperatures, taking a number of medications, such as caffeine or amphetamine) and psychological (information overload; competition; threat to social status, self-esteem, immediate environment, etc.). There are other reasons for classifying stressors. These can be environmental factors (toxins, heat, cold), they can be psychological (low self-esteem, depression) or social in nature (unemployment, death of a loved one). Stressors can be classified in other ways. They can be global, affecting the population, the nation as a whole (lack of stability in the way of life in the whole state, people’s uncertainty about the future), and personal, associated with problems in their personal life, loss of a job, loss of a loved one, conflicts at work.
Typically, stressors are divided into physiological(pain, hunger, thirst, excessive exercise, etc.) and psychological(danger, threat, loss, deception, information overload, etc.). The latter, in turn, are divided into emotional and informational.
Currently there is no unified classification stress factors. At the basis of various classifications, their parameters are identified as system-forming: the nature and nature of stress stimuli (psychological, social, physical and other influences); their intensity and exposure (duration); features of conditions and complexity of impact. There are types of irritants associated with professional, industrial and personal activities.
Life events are also considered as stressors, which can be systematized by the amount of negative valence and the time required for readaptation. Distinguish microstressors (daily hassles)- everyday difficulties, difficulties, troubles; macrostressors - critical life (traumatic) events and chronic stressors of both situational (prolonged divorce, chronic illness) and interpersonal nature (communication with people suffering from serious illnesses, such as schizophrenia, cancer).
For penitentiary stressology The most acceptable classification of stress factors is based on the practical experience of psychologists in the armed forces and various units of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (G.S. Chovdyrova et al.).
This classification provides for the division of stressors according to the following criteria:
I. By the nature of psychosocial motivation:
- 1. Stressors of everyday intense professional activity.
- 2. Stressors of activity in extreme conditions (EC):
- a) emergency stressors (EC);
- b) stressors emergency situations(emergency);
- c) stressors of emergency incidents.
- 3. Stressors of family life (wedding, divorce, birth of a child, illness or death of loved ones, etc.).
- 4. Stressors of a moral nature (remorse, responsibility for the life and health of both innocent people and criminals, the need to use weapons and other means of destruction).
- 5. Stressors of social conditions of mixed origin: long-term isolation from the usual environment (military service, being a hostage, being in prison), the need to resign and adapt to other living conditions, sexual disharmony, illness, necessity surgical intervention, unmet material needs, etc.
II. By duration:
- 1. Short-term stressors (from several hours to several days):
- a) causing anxiety and fear (meeting with an armed enemy, taking hostages, actions in conditions associated with large human losses, with a real threat to life);
- b) causing unpleasant physical sensations (pain, fatigue caused by unfavorable meteorological and environmental conditions - fires, floods, toxic substances);
- c) by pace and speed (the need to process a large flow of information and make a decision, the need to show maximum speed and speed of movement);
- d) to distract attention (tactical maneuvers of the enemy);
- e) with an unsuccessful result (miscalculation in assessing situations, error in movement technique).
- 2. Long-term stressors (from several months to several years):
- a) long-term loads that cause fatigue (long shifts associated with a certain risk and danger, protection of valuables, special objects, monotony of working conditions, the need to constantly fulfill the requirements of superiors in a limited time frame);
- b) isolation (service in the troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, serving a sentence in places of deprivation of liberty, associated with a long separation from family and familiar conditions, long business trips in stressful conditions, service in places of deprivation of liberty);
- c) wars (conducting long-term hostilities).
III. By the nature of the effect on the senses:
- 1. Visual-psychological stressors (death in front of loved ones, colleagues, contact with a large number of wounded, maimed, panicked people; destruction of buildings, equipment, structures, landscapes; fires, explosions; the sight of corpses, blood, etc.).
- 2. Auditory stressors (hum, roar, roar, shooting).
- 3. Tactile-olfactory stressors (vibration, air shocks, shocks, smells of gas and corpses, cold, heat, electric current, etc.).
This classification of stress factors is conditional, since in each specific area these factors can affect the individual in a complex manner. For example, participants in special operations to free hostages are affected to varying degrees by the following: stress factors:
- - immediate and highly probable threat to life and health;
- - responsibility for the life and health of hostages, the constant risk of harm to them through inaction or wrong actions;
- - wide public resonance of each specific case, especially close attention to the actions of law enforcement agencies, the socio-political significance of their mistakes;
- - absence or contradictory information about criminals and their psychological characteristics;
- - extreme dynamism and difficult to predict nature of changes in the situation due to the characteristics of the behavior of criminals;
- - the need for long-term restraint of natural, extremely negative emotions in the process of direct contact with criminals;
- - constant overload of psychophysiological functions, caused by the need to analyze and forecast the development of the situation, make responsible decisions, organize and carry out clear and coordinated actions within a strict time limit;
- - moral and moral experiences associated with the need to use weapons or other means of destruction against a criminal as a person.
At the same time, the external stress factors themselves, acting in one or another extreme situation, are not of decisive importance without correlating them with the internal characteristics of each person, his spiritual and physical preparation.
The stressors to which the human body has adapted during evolution are a variety of factors that violate safety or require adaptation. Some stressors require immediate physical activity to avoid injury or damage. Other stressors also induce fight or flight, even if an immediate physical response is not possible or would be unacceptable to the environment. These stressors can be called symbolic. These include loss of social status, decreased self-esteem, overwork, etc. Although the nature of stressors may be different, they can trigger genetically determined nonspecific defense reaction. From these positions, there is no need to use any adjectives in combination with the term “stress”. Summarizing the presented material, we can conclude that a stressor is an external or internal stimulus that can trigger a fight or flight response.
It should be noted once again that adjectives such as “emotional”, “professional”, “penitentiary” and others are used more often in order to emphasize nature stressors or ways of “causing” stress. At symbolic threat, as with the action of real stressors, the accumulation of products of the activity of stress mechanisms occurs. But in modern society, the fight or flight response is rarely used. The “products” of stress accumulate, but a person cannot use them. The result is an increased stress response becomes protracted leading to the development of distress and various diseases. In other words, unacceptable for an individual is that information (stimulus, situation) that awakens or intensifies need arousal, but does not give the individual the opportunity to take active actions towards the realization (and therefore discharge) of this arousal. Moreover, of the two characteristics - duration and strength of the stressor - duration is more important. The longer a stressor affects a person, the stronger the distress.
In psychophysiology, stress reactivity is understood as the magnitude of the fight or flight reaction; it is strictly individual and genetically determined. Stress reactivity at the physiological level is manifested in an increase in muscle tension, increased heart rate, increased blood pressure and nervous arousal, increased sweating, changes in the wave (electrophysiological) activity of the brain, redistribution of blood in the body, etc. In the most simplified form, all these changes prepare the body for rapid action and are caused by the production of biologically active substances, and if the latter are not used, this leads to health problems. Stress reactivity is closely related to stress resistance. Stress resistance - individual ability the body to maintain normal performance during the action of a stressor, which can be improved through training.
Thus, considering the above definitions of stress, it should be assumed that Stress in its most general form is understood not as a reaction, but as a state of homeostasis that ensures the necessary human activity under certain environmental conditions. Stress reaction - changes in the level of activity under the influence of certain stressors, and distress- such an overstrain of the work of psychophysiological (primarily neuroendocrine) mechanisms, which causes a disruption (functional or morphological) of the activity of various structures of the body and the development of pathology.
