Stress is something which everyone experiences at some point in their lives and it is often experienced due to certain triggers. Stress and its many triggers can have negative impacts on people’s health. In the Pengilly and Dowd (2000) article on Stress Hardiness, the concept of different categories of triggers is discussed. There are events which most people will go through at some point in their life, such as moving house or changing their place of work, and there are events which less people will have to deal with in their life time, such as divorce.
The category which contains events such as moving house, can cause stress as they can cause us to worry about unknown aspects of the change and can provide us with a lot to do, adding to our already busy schedules. Worrying can have a negative impact on our health as it can lead to panic which can cause problems with our heart and our breathing rate. It can also lead to us becoming physically and mentally tired, making us run down and this can lead to skin problems which can cause pain and may require medical treatment. In order to reduce worries about new things, we should try to develop a good level of self-esteem, meaning that we can enter in to new experiences with more confidence, leading to us worrying less about avoidable things.
Also, having too much to do can have a negative impact on our health as if we are constantly faced with an unrealistic work-load, we will possibly struggle to manage a work/life balance, meaning we are possibly spending less time with our loved ones and less time feeling relaxed and happy and possibly a sense of isolation. All of these things can lead to people feeling lonely and this in turn can lead to depression. As an attempt to combat this trigger, we should make a conscious effort to build up a strong social support, which will allow us to relieve our problems and to be a part of a support system which cares for us and listens as well as provides us with advice. This can be done by making time to join clubs and going out to meet people with similar interests to us.
In addition, as people are required to do things which take them out of their comfort zone at work, university, school, and in everyday life, they may feel as though they are under pressure to do as best as they can. This can lead to extremely hard work and to people not giving themselves a break, meaning they are under constant stress. This can lead to a higher heart rate, a higher cholesterol, and can have an affect on your adrenal and thyroid glands. To combat this we must consider the hard work as a challenge rather than a hurdle. Although it is hard work, we must consider the outcome and consider that it will be helping us to reach our goals. However, we also must consider our happiness in the present time and this can be achieved by taking control and planning our time to fit in the things we have to do as well as the things we want to do, meaning that we can relieve our stress and give our brains a break.
Furthermore, the category which contains rarer triggers of stress can cause people to feel extreme emotional pain and this can lead to stress. People who go through divorce, for example, may have to go through legal processes and have to make decisions about where they are going to live and about their children’s future relationship with their other parent. All of these things which lead from divorce can cause people to feel anxious and can possibly lessen their self-esteem. This can cause problems with breathing rates and may cause people to eat more, or less, than their body requires, effecting their digestive system. Although taking control of our lives is very important, sometimes it is good to remember that we cannot in fact control everything, no matter how hard we try. There will always be negative experiences in our lives that we have to overcome and that we have no control over. In order to relieve our stress caused by these problems, we must devote some time to ourselves, focussing on the positive points of our lives, doing what makes us feel good, and allowing life to control certain things for us, remembering that everything happens for a reason.
Finally, diagnosis of a disease can in fact cause further problems for one’s health. If a person is diagnosed with a disease they will be likely to worry about the consequences of this disease and to worry about the effects it will have on them, their lives, and their loved ones. This anxiety and idea of the unknown can cause people to have faster heart rates and for the blood to travel around their body faster, as well as other possible health problems such as a rise in glucose levels in the blood, meaning that on top of the impact the disease is having on their health, they are further damaging their health by worrying about the unknown. A positive outlook can be extremely hard to develop in these kinds of situations, but it can definitely lead to more happiness and better health in the short and long term. This kind of outlook can stop people from spending all of their time worrying about what might happen in the future and to instead focus on living their lives to the full. It is also through a sense of hope and a belief that everything is going to be alright in the end for themselves and for the ones they love, that many people feel less worried about the unknown.
