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Stress May Be Your Heart’s Worst Enemy

Psychological stress activates the fear center in the brain, setting into motion a cascade of reactions that can lead to heart attacks and strokes.

By Jane E. Brody

You’re probably familiar with these major risk factors for heart disease: high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, diabetes, obesity and physical inactivity. And chances are your doctor has checked you more than once for these risks and, I would hope, offered advice or treatment to help ward off a heart attack or stroke.

But has your doctor also asked about the level of stress in your life? Chronic psychological stress, recent studies indicate, may be as important — and possibly more important — to the health of your heart than the traditional cardiac risk factors. In fact, in people with less-than-healthy hearts, mental stress trumps physical stress as a potential precipitant of fatal and nonfatal heart attacks and other cardiovascular events, according to the latest report.

The new study, published in November in JAMA , assessed the fates of 918 patients known to have underlying, but stable, heart disease to see how their bodies reacted to physical and mental stress. The participants underwent standardized physical and mental stress tests to see if their hearts developed myocardial ischemia — a significantly reduced blood flow to the muscles of the heart, which can be a trigger for cardiovascular events — during either or both forms of stress. Then the researchers followed them for four to nine years.

Among the study participants who experienced ischemia during one or both tests, this adverse reaction to mental stress took a significantly greater toll on the hearts and lives of the patients than did physical stress. They were more likely to suffer a nonfatal heart attack or die of cardiovascular disease in the years that followed.

I wish I had known that in 1982, when my father had a heart attack that nearly killed him. Upon leaving the hospital, he was warned about overdoing physical stresses, like not lifting anything heavier than 30 pounds. But he was never cautioned about undue emotional stress or the risks of overreacting to frustrating circumstances, like when the driver ahead of him drove too slowly in a no-passing zone.

The new findings underscore the results of an earlier study that evaluated the relationship between risk factors and heart disease in 24,767 patients from 52 countries. It found that patients who experienced a high level of psychological stress during the year before they entered the study were more than twice as likely to suffer a heart attack during an average follow-up of five years, even when traditional risk factors were taken into account.

The study, known as Interheart , showed that psychological stress is an independent risk factor for heart attacks, similar in heart-damaging effects to the more commonly measured cardiovascular risks, explained Dr. Michael T. Osborne, a cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital.

But what about the effects of stress on people whose hearts are still healthy? Psychological stress comes in many forms. It can occur acutely, caused by incidents like the loss of a job, the death of a loved one, or the destruction of one’s home in a natural disaster. A recent study in Scandinavia found that in the week following a child’s death, the parents’ risk of a heart attack was more than three times the expected rate. Emotional stress can also be chronic, resulting, for example, from ongoing economic insecurity, living in a high-crime area or experiencing unrelenting depression or anxiety. Bereaved parents in the Scandinavian study continued to experience an elevated cardiac risk years later.

How stress damages the heart

Dr. Osborne participated with a team of experts led by Dr. Ahmed Tawakol, also at Massachusetts General, in an analysis of how the body reacts to psychological stress. He said the accumulated evidence of how the brain and body respond to chronic psychological stress strongly suggested that modern medicine has been neglecting a critically important hazard to heart health .

It all starts in the brain’s fear center, the amygdala, which reacts to stress by activating the so-called fight-or-flight response, triggering the release of hormones that over time can increase levels of body fat, blood pressure and insulin resistance. Furthermore, as the team explained , the cascade of reactions to stress causes inflammation in the arteries, fosters blood clotting and impairs the function of blood vessels, all of which promote atherosclerosis, the arterial disease that underlies most heart attacks and strokes.

Dr. Tawakol’s team explained that advanced neuroimaging made it possible to directly measure the impact of stress on various body tissues, including the brain. A prior study of 293 people initially free of cardiovascular disease who underwent full-body scans that included brain activity had a telling result. Five years later, individuals found to have high activity in the amygdala were shown to have higher levels of inflammation and atherosclerosis.

Translation: Those with an elevated level of emotional stress developed biological evidence of cardiovascular disease. In contrast, Dr. Osborne said, “people who are not tightly wired” are less likely to experience the ill heart effects of stress.

The researchers are now investigating the impact of a stress-reducing program called SMART-3RP (it stands for Stress Management and Resiliency Training-Relaxation Response Resiliency Program) on the brain as well as biological factors that promote atherosclerosis. The program is designed to help people reduce stress and build resilience through mind-body techniques like mindfulness-based meditation, yoga and tai chi. Such measures activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which calms the brain and body.

Defusing stress and its effects

Even without a formal program, Dr. Osborne said individuals could minimize their body’s heart-damaging reactions to stress. One of the best ways is through habitual physical exercise, which can help to tamp down stress and the body-wide inflammation it can cause.

Given that poor sleep increases stress and promotes arterial inflammation, developing good sleep habits can also reduce the risk of cardiovascular damage. Adopt a consistent pattern of bedtime and awakening, and avoid exposure at bedtime to screens that emit blue light, like smartphones and computers, or use blue-light filters for such devices.

Practice relaxing measures like mindfulness meditation, calming techniques that slow breathing, yoga and tai chi.

Several common medications can also help, Dr. Osborne said. Statins not only reduce cholesterol, they also counter arterial inflammation, resulting in a greater cardiovascular benefit than from their cholesterol-lowering effects alone. Antidepressants, including the anesthetic ketamine, may also help to minimize excessive amygdalar activity and ease stress in people with depression.

Jane Brody is the Personal Health columnist, a position she has held since 1976. She has written more than a dozen books including the best sellers “Jane Brody’s Nutrition Book” and “Jane Brody’s Good Food Book.” More about Jane E. Brody

A Guide to Meditation

Find a comfortable spot and get ready to relax..

Meditation is a simple practice available to all that can reduce stress, increase calmness and clarity, and promote happiness. Here is how to get started .

Building a routine doesn’t have to be hard — it can take as little as five minutes as soon as you wake up .

This weeklong plan of five-minute meditations  won’t solve all your problems, but it can help you through life’s challenges.

Closing your eyes and focusing on breathing can be hard for those who are easily distracted. But it is possible .

Want to expand your knowledge of meditation? We asked mindfulness experts and scientists to share their favorite beginner-friendly books on the subject .

To jump-start your practice, you might be tempted to download a meditation app . Here are the best options , according to Wirecutter.

Stress and Its Effects on Health Essay

Introduction, physical effects, psychological effects, behavioral effects.

Stress is the emotional strain or tension experienced by an individual due to a reaction toward various demanding and influential situations. The challenging or compelling situations are termed stressors. Stressors can be internal or external and include life changes such as losing a significant figure, low socioeconomic status, relationship problems, occupational challenges, and familial or environmental factors. An individual’s response to stressors influences the outcome of their life. Health is a state of complete social, emotional, and physical well-being and not merely the absence of disease. Stress is a common risk factor for negative health status secondary to negative adaptation and coping with the stressors. Stressors can create a strain on one’s physical, psychological and behavioral well-being, leading to lasting effects that are detrimental to one’s health.

Stress is associated with various physical health impacts on an individual. In an online cross-sectional survey by Keech et al. (2020) to determine the association between stress and the physical and psychological health of police officers, the findings illustrate that stress negatively impacts physical and psychological well-being. One hundred and thirty-four police officers were involved in the study (Keech et al., 2020). The findings demonstrate that stress resulted in various short and long-term physical effects that included increased heart rates, sweating, high blood pressure, and long-term development of the cardiac condition. In addition, stress resulted in the development of gastrointestinal disorders such as peptic ulcer and irritable bowel syndrome. Keech et al. (2020) note that stress’s associated physical health effects are explained by various mechanisms that include overstimulation of the sympathetic nervous system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis.

Overstimulation of the sympathetic nervous system results in increased sympathetic actions on the peripheral body organs leading to increased sweat production, heart rate, respiration rate, and urinary and bowel elimination. The study notes that chronic stress without positive adaptation measures results in the progressive development of hypertension, peptic ulcers, and irritable bowel syndrome as long-term effects (Keech et al., 2020). Within the gastrointestinal tract, chronic stress activity on the sympathetic nervous system results in increased parietal cell action. Overactivity of the parietal cells results in excessive gastric acid production, gradually eroding the mucosa, and ulceration occurs.

The effects of stress on the cardiovascular system are explained in a review by Kivimäki & Steptoe (2017) to determine the impact of stress on the development and progression of cardiovascular diseases. In the review, stress is identified to cause cardiovascular conditions secondary to the effects of sustained sympathetic action on heart contractility and peripheral vascular resistance (Kivimäki & Steptoe, 2017). The sympathetic nervous system contributes to normal heart and blood vessel contractility. However, when the system is overstimulated, a surge in contractility above the normal limits ensues, leading to the progressive development of heart conditions.

Psychological well-being incorporates a positive mental health status evidenced by an individual’s satisfaction with life, happiness, rational thinking and decision-making, and positive mood patterns. Stress has been associated with alterations in an individual’s psychological wellness. An explanation for alteration in an individual’s psychological well-being secondary to stress is negative adaptation. Keech et al. (2020) note that an individual’s response to a stressor determines whether stress results in positive or negative effects. In the online cross-sectional survey by Keech et al. (2020), the findings illustrate that pressure resulted in the development of anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorders as long-term effects among the participants. Exposure to stressful situations resulted in progressively developing anxiety among the individual secondary to persistent worry over the issue. The anxiety results in other physical manifestations, including increased heart rate, palpitations, sweating, and altered mobility. Depression and bipolar conditions were also associated with chronic stress secondary to the impacts of stress on neurotransmitter function and nerves.

Similar findings are noted in a cross-sectional study by Zhang et al. (2020) to compare the prevalence and severity of stress-associated mental health symptoms, including anxiety, depression, and insomnia among healthcare workers during the COVID pandemic. Five hundred and twenty-four healthcare workers were involved in the study. The study findings illustrate that 31.3% of the participants developed depression secondary to the stressful working environment, 41.2% reported anxiety, and 39.3% reported sleep disturbances (Zhang et al., 2020). The scientific explanation for the relationship between stress and depression was attributed to the effects of stressful periods on neurotransmitter homeostasis. Chronic stress results in the altered regulation of neurotransmitters in the central nervous system. Alterations in serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine resulted in the progressive development of depression and anxiety. Sleep disturbances reported by the participants are attributed to alterations in cortisol hormone homeostasis secondary to overstimulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis.

Stressful situations can also lead to alterations in the behavioral patterns of an individual. The most common behavioral effects secondary to stress include the development of eating disorders, altered sleeping patterns, impaired concentration, and drug abuse especially alcohol. Alterations in sleep and eating patterns are linked to stress’s effects on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis (HPA). Exposure to stressful events leads to increased activation of the HPA axis with a net effect of increased catecholamine production (adrenaline and noradrenaline) (Moustafa et al., 2018). Increased adrenaline and noradrenaline production results in dysregulation in the eating and sleeping patterns. Sustained high levels of cortisol results in difficulty falling asleep and increased metabolic processes. The biological clock regulates the typical sleeping pattern that relies on producing the sleep hormone melatonin. Melatonin production by the pineal gland is regulated indirectly by the concentration of serum cortisol levels and directly by light perception. Imbalances in the serum concentration cycle secondary to stress results in imbalanced melatonin production and concentration with a net effect of sleeping difficulties.

The emotional strain caused by stress increases the risk of alcohol and other illicit drug use and dependence. Moustafa et al. (2018) conducted an integrative literature review to determine the relationship between childhood trauma, early-life stress, alcohol and drug use, addiction, and abuse. The review findings illustrate that stress increases the risk of alcohol and drug use, addiction, and abuse among the victims. An explanation for the increased risk is the individuals’ lack of identification and implementation of effective coping strategies (Moustafa et al., 2018). Lack of effective coping strategies results in maladaptive measures such as illicit drug use and alcohol consumption. Extensive use of the maladaptive measures results in progressive addiction and drug abuse among individuals with an increased predisposition to other health effects. Alcohol consumption and other illicit drug use over time increase the risk of developing cardiac, respiratory, and liver conditions.

Stress is the emotional strain or tension experienced by an individual due to a reaction toward various demanding and influential situations. Individual response to stressors influences their health. Maladaptive response to stress results in various physical, psychological, and behavioral negative effects. Negative effects of stress on physical health include increased heart rates, sweating, high blood pressure, and long-term development of the cardiac condition. Psychological effects include the development of anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorders. The behavioral effects of stress on an individual include the development of eating disorders, altered sleeping patterns, impaired concentration, and abuse of alcohol and other drugs. Based on the research findings, it is essential for healthcare providers to identify strategic measures and health initiatives to educate and sensitize the community members on effective stress management approaches in all settings to aid in combating the health effects.

Keech, J. J., Cole, K. L., Hagger, M. S., & Hamilton, K. (2020). The association between stress mindset and physical and psychological well being: Testing a stress beliefs model in police officers . Psychology & Health , 35 (11), 1306-1325. Web.

Kivimäki, M., & Steptoe, A. (2017). Effects of stress on the development and progression of cardiovascular disease . Nature Reviews Cardiology , 15 (4), 215–229. Web.

Moustafa, A. A., Parkes, D., Fitzgerald, L., Underhill, D., Garami, J., Levy-Gigi, E., Stramecki, F., Valikhani, A., Frydecka, D., & Misiak, B. (2018). The relationship between childhood trauma, early-life stress, and alcohol and drug use, abuse, and addiction: An integrative review . Current Psychology , 40 (2), 579–584. Web.

Zhang, X., Zhao, K., Zhang, G., Feng, R., Chen, J., Xu, D., Liu, X., Ngoubene-Italy, A. J., Huang, H., Liu, Y., Chen, L., & Wang, W. (2020). Occupational Stress and Mental Health: A comparison between frontline medical staff and non-frontline medical staff during the 2019 novel Coronavirus Disease outbreak . Frontiers in Psychiatry , 11 . Web.

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An Overview of Stress Management

Elizabeth Scott, PhD is an author, workshop leader, educator, and award-winning blogger on stress management, positive psychology, relationships, and emotional wellbeing.

Carly Snyder, MD is a reproductive and perinatal psychiatrist who combines traditional psychiatry with integrative medicine-based treatments.

Stress Management

Stress management is the range of techniques, strategies, and therapies designed to help people control their stress. This can include lowering acute stress, but it is often aimed at lowering chronic stress to improve health, happiness, and overall well-being. Stress management strategies may include:

• Deep breathing
• Eating a healthy diet
• Getting enough sleep
• Guided visualization
• Hobbies and leisure activities
• Mindfulness
• Positive thinking
• Progressive muscle relaxation
• Psychotherapy
• Social support

We all experience stress in our lives. Because many health problems are caused or influenced by stress, it's essential to understand how stress affects your body and learn effective stress management techniques to make stress work for you rather than against you.

What Is Stress?

Stress is your body’s response to changes in your life. Because life involves constant change—ranging from everyday, routine changes like commuting from home to work to adapting to major life changes like marriage, divorce, or death of a loved one—there is no avoiding stress.  

Your goal shouldn't be to eliminate all stress but to eliminate unnecessary stress and effectively manage the rest. There are some common causes of stress that many people experience, but each person is different.

Stress can come from many sources, which are known as " stressors ." Because our experience of what is considered "stressful" is created by our unique perceptions of what we encounter in life (based on our own mix of personality traits, available resources, and habitual thought patterns), a situation may be perceived as "stressful" by one person and merely "challenging" by someone else.

Simply put, one person's stress trigger may not register as stressful to someone else. That said, certain situations tend to cause more stress in most people and can increase the risk of burnout .

For example, when we find ourselves in situations where there are high demands on us but we little control and few choices, we are likely to experience stress. We might also feel stress when we don't feel equipped; where we may be harshly judged by others; and where consequences for failure are steep or unpredictable.

Many people are stressed by their jobs , relationships , financial issues , and health problems, as well as more mundane things like clutter or busy schedules . Learning skills to cope with these stressors can help reduce your experience of stress.  

Press Play for Advice On Dealing With Money Issues

Hosted by therapist Amy Morin, LCSW, this episode of The Verywell Mind Podcast shares what to do when financial stress is impacting your mental health. Click below to listen now.

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Just as stress is perceived differently by each of us, stress affects us all in ways that are unique to us. One person may experience headaches, while another may find stomach upset is a common reaction, and a third may experience any of a number of other symptoms.

While we all react to stress in our own ways, there is a long list of commonly experienced effects of stress that range from mild to life-threatening. Stress can affect immunity, which can impact virtually all areas of health. Stress can affect mood in many ways as well. Creating a stress management plan is often one part of a plan for overall wellness.

If you find yourself experiencing physical symptoms you think may be related to stress, talk to your doctor to be sure you are doing what you can to safeguard your health. Symptoms that may be exacerbated by stress are not "all in your head" and need to be taken seriously.

Stress can be effectively managed in many different ways. The best stress management plans usually include a mix of stress relievers that address stress physically and psychologically and help to develop resilience and coping skills.

7 Highly Effective Stress Relievers

Use quick stress relievers.

Some stress relief techniques can work in just a few minutes to calm the body's stress response. These techniques offer a "quick fix" that helps you feel calmer at the moment, and this can help in several ways.

When your stress response is not triggered, you may approach problems more thoughtfully and proactively. You may be less likely to lash out at others out of frustration, which can keep your relationships healthier. Nipping your stress response in the bud can also keep you from experiencing chronic stress.

Quick stress relievers like breathing exercises, for example, may not build your resilience to future stress or minimize the stressors that you face. But they can help calm the body's physiology once the stress response is triggered.  

Develop Stress-Relieving Habits

Some techniques are less convenient to use when you are in the middle of a stressful situation. But if you practice them regularly, they can help you manage stress in general by being less reactive to it and more able to reverse your stress response quickly and easily.

Long-term healthy habits, like exercise or regular meditation , can help to promote resilience toward stressors if you make them a regular part of your life.   Communication skills and other lifestyle skills can be helpful in managing stressors and changing how we feel from "overwhelmed" to "challenged" or even "stimulated."

Eliminate Stressors When You Can

You may not be able to completely eliminate stress from your life or even the biggest stressors, but there are areas where you can minimize it and get it to a manageable level.

Any stress that you can cut out can minimize your overall stress load. For example, ending even one toxic relationship can help you more effectively deal with other stress you experience because you may feel less overwhelmed.  

Discovering a wide variety of stress management techniques, and then choosing a mix that fits your needs, can be a key strategy for effective stress relief.

Stress FAQs

There are a number of common questions that you might ask about stress and stress management.

Is All Stress Harmful to Health?

There are several different types of stress , and not all are harmful. Eustress , for example, is a positive form of stress. But chronic stress has been linked to many serious health issues and is the type of negative stress most often mentioned in the news.   While we want to manage or eliminate negative stress, we also want to keep positive forms of stress in our lives to help us remain vital and alive.

However, if we experience too much stress in our lives, even "good" stress can contribute to excessive stress levels, which can lead to feeling overwhelmed or having your stress response triggered for too long. This is why it is still important to learn to relax your body and mind periodically and cut down on unnecessary stress whenever possible.

How Can I Tell When I’m Too Stressed?

Stress affects us all in different ways, not all of which are negative. In fact, the stress of an exciting life can actually serve as a good motivator and keep things interesting. When stress levels get too intense, however, there are some stress symptoms that many people experience.

For example, headaches, irritability, and "fuzzy thinking" can all be symptoms that you’re under too much stress.   While not everybody who’s under stress will experience these specific symptoms, many will.

If you find that you don't realize how stressed you are until you are overwhelmed, it's important to learn to notice your body's subtle cues and your own behavior, almost like an outside observer might. To notice how your body is reacting to stress, you can try this body scan meditation (it helps relax at the same time).

What Can I Do When I Feel Overwhelmed?

We all feel overwhelmed from time to time; that’s normal. While it’s virtually impossible to eliminate times when events conspire and the body’s stress response is triggered, there are ways that you can quickly reverse your body’s reaction to stress, buffering the damage to your health and keeping your thinking clear, so you can more effectively deal with what’s going on in the moment.

Is There a Way to Be Less Affected by Stress?

By practicing regular stress management techniques, you can eliminate some of the stress you feel and make yourself more resilient in the face of stress in the future. There are several things you can try, ranging from a morning walk to an evening journaling practice to just making more time for friends. The trick is to find something that fits with your lifestyle and personality, so it’s easier to stick with.

National Institute of Mental Health. 5 Things You Should Know About Stress .

Ma X, Yue ZQ, Gong ZQ, et al. The effect of diaphragmatic breathing on attention, negative affect and stress in healthy adults .  Front Psychol . 2017;8:874. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00874

National Center for Complementary and Integrative Medicine. Mind and Body Approaches for Stress: What the Science Says . 2020.

Bota PG, Miropolskiy E, Nguyen V. Stop caretaking the borderline or narcissist: How to end the drama and get on with life .  Ment Illn . 2017;9(1):6985. doi:10.4081/mi.2017.6985

Lehrer PM, Woolfolk RL, Sime WE. Principles and Practice of Stress Management . 3rd edition. New York: The Guilford Press; 2007.

By Elizabeth Scott, PhD Elizabeth Scott, PhD is an author, workshop leader, educator, and award-winning blogger on stress management, positive psychology, relationships, and emotional wellbeing.

Transforming stress through awareness, education and collaboration.

The essays and articles found here cover a variety of stress topics.  These items posted here will rotate into the archives on a regular basis.    For more in depth reading on these and other stress topics log in and visit our archives.

Kirsch, Daniel L. and Nichols, Francine. Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 36(1):169-176, 2013. Click to download PDF [/toggle] [toggle title=”Soaring Stress in Lawyers”]Except for fictional TV heroes like Perry Mason and Ben Matlock, most people view lawyers as a significant source of stress.  Some who despise them might even second Shakespeare’s suggestion in Henry VI (Part 2), “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers”. But lawyers are themselves experiencing increased stress as indicated by statistics showing that as many as one in four complain of suffering from stress.

Out of 105 occupations, lawyers rank first in depression, their rate of alcohol abuse is 18% vs. 10% nationwide, there is a disproportionate increase in drug addiction and suicide and female lawyers working more than 45 hrs/week are three times more likely to have miscarriages than those working less than 35 hours. In addition to overwork, being a lawyer is stressful because of having the responsibility for other people, their money, family, or freedom, a high public expectation of performance and standards coupled with lower public tolerance or understanding, the increased adversarial nature of other lawyers, greater competition for clients, undertaking more work than can be handled, accepting cases outside an area of expertise due to complex and constantly changing legal precedents as well as assignments that are uninteresting or monotonous in order to survive financially.

These and other factors can cause the sensation of being physically and emotionally drained, feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, anxiety, guilt, shame or paranoia, and a negative attitude toward work, other people or life in general. In other instances there may be a sense of omnipotence or indispensability that makes it difficult to cut back on workload or responsibilities.

As a consequence, colleagues, staff, clients and adversaries are treated in a detached, dehumanizing fashion, there are frequent unscheduled absences from work, missed deadlines, delays in important meetings, increased marital or family conflicts and loss of contact with close friends, compulsive behaviors such as overeating, overspending, engaging in substance abuse and problems sleeping. A number of groups have been formed to provide advice and relief. The American Bar Association has had a yearly meeting devoted to this for two decades that is now a full four-day conference.

Brochure for American Bar Association 19th National Conference on Lawyer Assistance Programs October 24-27, 2006, Health And Stress Newsletter #8, 1997[/toggle] [toggle title=”Can supplements  help you lose weight by reducing cortisol and stress?”]Almost everyone who watches television knows that stress causes beer bellies because of commercials for Cortislim, Relacore, and other weight loss supplements that claim to reduce stress by lowering cortisol. The U.S. and New Zealand are the only two countries that allow such direct to consumer advertising and while all drugs must back up their claims and list side effects there is little or no control over nutritional supplements.

Cortislim contains a magical substance called honokiol, which “controls cortisol levels within a healthy range to help reduce fat storage and promote fat mobilization — especially fat stored around the midsection in the tough-to-lose abdominal area… It can help to ‘de-stress’ you without making you sleepy. When compared to pharmaceutical agents such as Valium (diazepam), honokiol appears to be as effective in its anti-anxiety activity, yet not nearly as powerful in its sedative ability.”

Relacore ads ask “Is Stress Making You Fat? Excess tummy flab is not your fault! Relacore is the solution to excess abdominal fat and  stress reduction!” Numerous other products have jumped on the stress-weight gain bandwagon and some of their assertions are even more ludicrous. Relacore also exhibits “excellent stress management abilities without sedation” that are comparable to Valium and in addition to lowering cortisol, it allegedly boosts DHEA.

CortiDrene is a “Breakthrough Product That Solves Stubborn Stress Fat as well as delivering Dual Action Anti-Aging Antioxidants”. due to its ability to “absorb fat, control the effects of cortisol overproduction, provide energy, relieve stress, control cravings, and promote weight loss.”

TheraStress is “the most scientifically advanced stress reducing, fatigue fighting, fat reducing, health enhancing natural product available.” It contains “adaptogens”, exotic oriental herbs that “stimulate the body’s own regenerative process” and “balance the secretions of the adrenal cortex.” All this from just 20-40 drops in a glass of water once a day.

CortaLean, the “Most Advanced Stress Reducing — Weight Loss Formula Ever Created” similarly” suppresses appetite, boosts metabolism, melts abdominal fat away and blocks cortisol levels induced by stress.  Its superiority comes from high amounts of vitamin B complex  that “could save 300,000 lives a year from heart attacks” according to an American Medical Association article journal that was not pertinent.

Citing irrelevant articles from respected journals to provide a patina of authenticity is a common deceptive practice used by these supplements to confuse consumers. After all, what could be better than a pill that will help you lose weight, lower stress and live longer that is supported by solid scientific studies? However, there are no supplements that do any of these things. As noted in past Newsletters, numerous studies do confirm that cortisol as well as stress can increase the  deposition of deep abdominal fat. The importance of this observation will  be discussed in the next Stress Bulletin.

References: Health And Stress Newsletter #6 2000, # 5 2003, #5 2004[/toggle] [toggle title=”Stress and Irritable Bowel Syndrome”]Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a common and painful disorder with a wide range of symptoms that can include intermittent or persistent abdominal pain, cramping, bloating, diarrhea or constipation. The condition is surprisingly common, with official estimates suggesting that 1 in 5 adult Americans will suffer one or more IBS symptoms at some time in their lives. Many feel that the incidence is higher since although IBS is the most frequent diagnosis that gastroenterologists make, many patients have symptoms but don’t complain or seek medical help.

Most people can control symptoms with a combination of diet, medications and stress management.  However, these vary and treatment programs that are effective for some patients may not improve others. A recent report from Kings College, London, also noted that many conventional drugs often provide minimal or no relief. “Symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome are similar to those found in depression, so things that work for depression work for it. Patients with IBS are not depressed, but the treatments work.” It was suggested that in many IBS sufferers, the problem is due to an exaggerated response of the brain and central nervous system to normal gastrointestinal sensations and stimuli, as well as to emotional stress.

Support comes from studies showing that certain stress reduction strategies such as cognitive behavioral interventions and hypnotherapy can provide very significant benefits in most patients, especially for those with severe symptoms. These approaches focus on how patients perceive their symptoms, rather than the symptoms themselves. They also emphasize that IBS patients don’t necessarily have a psychological problem, but rather a behavioral pattern that makes them more ulnerable to developing symptoms, as well as overreacting to them.

According to one of the authors, “Patients with irritable bowel syndrome should be made aware of the existence of these treatments so that they can make informed choices. Specifically, they should be made aware that using a psychological treatment does not mean that the disease is ‘all in the mind'”. He found that one of the most effective treatments for IBS were so-called “talking therapies”, such as cognitive behavioral interventions. As another author explained, “That’s a general term for a set of psychotherapies based on the belief that changing the way a person thinks about a condition can bring about improvement, even if the condition does not change. In a condition with such a wide range of symptoms, treatment must be tailored to the individual patient. In general, people who are more open to the idea of therapy will do better”.

Hypnotherapy concentrates on promoting relaxation by imagery techniques, such as visualizing the gut as a fast flowing river and then imagining it to be flowing more slowly and smoothly. It is particularly effective in patients complaining of constipation. Studies show that hypnotherapy is as effective as antidepressants and that its effects last longer. Unfortunately, there is a lack of specialists in these areas, and as one author stated, “Irritable bowel syndrome is undeniably very common, and many patients are probably denied help by lack of access to therapists with the appropriate psychological skills.”

In commenting on the article, a specialist from Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, explained, ” IBS is a case of “brain-gut interaction. There is a ‘big brain’ in the skull and a ‘little brain’ in the gut. Either you have too much information going up or too much information going down.”  She also emphasized that treatment requires intensive doctor-patient discussions to reinforce that IBS is not a psychological disease per se but rather a hyperactive brain-gut reaction that can be toned down to attenuate symptoms.

Ref: Hayee B, Forgacs I. Psychological approach to managing irritable bowel syndrome. BMJ, May 2007; 334: 1105–1109. Causes, symptoms and treatments for IBS are described in detail by the U.S. National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse and can be found at http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ [/toggle] [toggle title=”Stress, GERD and the new Halo treatment”]People respond to stress differently and for some, the GI tract can take center stage. Stress can affect the gut by involuntary nervous system influences that disrupt normal motility patterns and the secretion of enzymes and hydrochloric acid as well as stimulating the production of anti-inflammatory hormones like cortisol that produce ulcerations. It makes me “sick to my stomach” or gives me”agita” are common complaints and in addition to nausea and heartburn, others may experience abdominal pain, bloating, cramps or diarrhea.  While these symptoms are usually transient and not disabling, repeatedly invoked, it is not hard to understand why stress might cause esophagitis, peptic ulcer, irritable bowel disease as well as ileitis and ulcerative colitis. Conversely, these diseases are also sources of stress and in many instances, it can be difficult to determine which came first.

In recent years, attention has focused on GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease) that now affects more than 60 million Americans. In an effort to determine the role of stress, researchers followed 60 patients with heartburn symptoms who were retrospectively assessed for the frequency and severity of heartburn symptoms over the previous 6 months and then followed for an additional 4 months. Symptom frequency, severity, quality of life, and degree of anxiety, depression, and vital exhaustion were recorded in a daily diary. The presence of some severe or sustained stressful event during the previous 6 months significantly predicted increased heartburn symptoms during the following 4 months. Because of aggressive direct to consumer advertising, sales of acid reflux drugs to treat GERD like Nexium, Prilosec and Prevacid are now over $13 billion annually. While GERD is not a serious disorder in most patients, a small percentage may develop Barrett’s esophagus, a precancerous condition that requires periodic observation and constant treatment.  The problem is that people over 50 who take these popular proton pump inhibitors for more than a year have a 44 percent increased risk of breaking a hip. This and similar complications are worse in older individuals with osteoporosis, possibly because blocking stomach acid interferes with the absorption of calcium.

GERD symptoms are most apt to occur following large meals, spicy foods, carbonated beverages, alcohol, smoking, or lying down after meals.  Symptoms are more severe and frequent if there is a hiatus hernia or weakening of the lower esophageal sphincter that normally prevents acid reflux. Obesity and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory and other medications can also increase risk. Avoiding or correcting these problems and over the counter antacids are sometimes all that may be required. A July 31 New York Times article cited several studies showing that chewing gum after heartburn inducing meals prevented GERD symptoms for up to three hours. Researchers speculate that increased saliva secretion helped to neutralize the acid and also force fluids back into the stomach. Antacid chewing gum may be another option since this was found to be more effective after a meal than chewable antacid tablets.  In addition, a new “Halo “procedure that literally heats away the problem in about 15 minutes appears to eradicate Barrett’s in up to 90 percent of cases. A tube is inserted into the esophagus and a balloon is inflated adjacent to the affected area. A radiofrequency current of energy that travels through the balloon burns away the Barrett’s lesions allowing healthy tissue to eventually grow back. No incision is necessary and the procedure seems to be well tolerated with few adverse side effects and most patients can return to their normal activities within 2 hrs.

References: Naliboff BD, Mayer M, et al. The Effect of Life Stress on Symptoms of Heartburn. Psychosom Med 2004; 66:426-434.Sharma VK, Wang KK, et al. Balloon-based, circumferential, endoscopic radiofrequency ablation of Barrett’s esophagus: 1-year follow-up of 100 patients.  Gastrointest Endosc 2007; 65: 185-195. O’Connor A. Chewing Gum After A Meal Can Prevent Heartburn. New York Times, 7/31/07.[/toggle] [toggle title=”Stress, Suicide and Female Physicians”]Physicians are more likely to commit suicide than the general public, as well as those in other professions. While this tendency was noted 150 years ago in A Manual of Psychological Medicine, the problem has become more prevalent. This has generally been attributed to the increased stresses doctors are now subjected to, including: Practice pressures and demands that leave little time to attend to family or personal needs, Government regulations that are increasingly restrictive, Third party intrusions and interference, Increase in malpractice litigation and insurance costs, Pressure to practice defensive medicine, Erosion of the doctor-patient relationship, Diminished public image of physicians, Fear of serious injury from a violent patient or protest group, Managing the business aspects of medical practice in a climate of decreasing compensation at the same time expenses continue to escalate, Lack of access to support systems. It is estimated that three times as many physicians take their own lives compared to the population at large. Up to 130 commit suicide each year, which is about the size of the Harvard Medical School graduating class.

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Essay on Stress Management

500 words essay on stress management.

Stress is a very complex phenomenon that we can define in several ways. However, if you put them together, it is basically the wear and tear of daily life. Stress management refers to a wide spectrum of techniques and psychotherapies for controlling a person’s stress level, especially chronic stress . If there is effective stress management, we can help one another break the hold of stress on our lives. The essay on stress management will throw light on the very same thing.

Identifying the Source of Stress

The first step of stress management is identifying the source of stress in your life. It is not as easy as that but it is essential. The true source of stress may not always be evident as we tend to overlook our own stress-inducing thoughts and feelings.

For instance, you might constantly worry about meeting your deadline. But, in reality, maybe your procrastination is what leads to this stress than the actual deadline. In order to identify the source of stress, we must look closely within ourselves.

If you explain away stress as temporary, then it may be a problem. Like if you yourself don’t take a breather from time to time, what is the point? On the other hand, is stress an integral part of your work and you acknowledging it like that?

If you make it a part of your personality, like you label things as crazy or nervous energy, you need to look further. Most importantly, do you blame the stress on people around you or the events surrounding you?

It is essential to take responsibility for the role one plays in creating or maintaining stress. Your stress will remain outside your control if you do not do it.

Strategies for Stress Management

It is obvious that we cannot avoid all kinds of stress but there are many stressors in your life which you can definitely eliminate. It is important to learn how to say no and stick to them.  Try to avoid people who stress you out.

Further, if you cannot avoid a stressful situation, try altering it. Express your feelings don’t bottle them up and manage your time better. Moreover, you can also adapt to the stressor if you can’t change it.

Reframe problems and look at the big picture. Similarly, adjust your standards and focus on the positive side. Never try to control the uncontrollable. Most importantly, make time for having fun and relaxing.

Spend some time with nature, go for a walk or call a friend, whatever pleases you.  You can also try working out, listening to music and more. As long as it makes you happy, never give up.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Conclusion of the Essay on Stress Management

All in all, we can control our stress levels with relaxation techniques that evoke the relaxation response of our body. It is the state of restfulness that is the opposite of the stress response. Thus, when you practice these techniques regularly, you can build your resilience and heal yourself.

FAQ of Essay on Stress Management

Question 1: What is the importance of stress management?

Answer 1: Stress management is very efficient as it helps in breaking the hold which stress has on our lives. Moreover, you can also become happy, healthy and more productive because of it. The ultimate goal should be to live a balanced life and have the resilience to hold up under pressure.

Question 2: Give some stress management techniques.

Answer 2: There are many stress management techniques through which one can reduce stress in their lives. One can change their situation or their reaction to it. We can try by altering the situation. If not, we can change our attitudes towards it. Remember, accept things that you cannot change.

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Can scientists ‘solve’ stress? They’re trying.

From cardiovascular disease and obesity to a weakened immune system, the side effects of stress can be life-altering. But there may be a way to prevent those outcomes.

As modern-day stress ratchets up to what feels like unbearable levels, researchers are striving to learn more about the precise mechanisms through which it affects our body and mind. The hope is that by unlocking more about how stress works physiologically, we can find ways to prevent it from permanently harming people.

Over the last five decades, scientists have established beyond doubt that persistent stress really can poison our overall health. In addition to increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease , stress plays a role in obesity and diabetes and can weaken the immune system , leaving us more vulnerable to infectious diseases. You can recover swiftly from an episode of acute stress—for example, the alarm one might feel when caught unprepared for a presentation. Chronic stress, on the other hand, is more toxic as it is an unrelenting circumstance that offers little chance for a return to normalcy. Financial strain, having a bully for a boss, and social isolation are all examples.

Today chronic stress seems to be increasing worldwide, as people grapple with rapid socioeconomic and environmental change.   A 2023 national survey by the American Psychological Association found that stress has taken a serious toll since the start of the pandemic , with the incidence of chronic illnesses and mental health problems going up significantly, especially among those ages 35 to 44.

( Do you have chronic stress? Look for these signs. )

So far, one of the major realizations among scientists is that stress harms all of us in different and powerful ways. But is there any way to avoid it—or at least recover more quickly? Some promising avenues of research offer hope for the future.

Preventing chronic stress from harming you in the first place

Groundbreaking studies in orphans showed how stress in early life can leave an indelible mark on the brain.

For Hungry Minds

“Chronic stress in early life has more serious and lasting effects, because that’s when a lot of connections are being laid down in the brain,” says Aniko Korosi, a researcher at the University of Amsterdam who has been conducting experiments on mice to elucidate that link between early-life stress and brain development.

Korosi may have found a surprising link between stress and the resulting nutrient composition in the brain . She and her colleagues noticed that mouse pups that had been exposed to stress in the first week of their lives—having been moved from their mother’s care to a cage—had lower levels of certain fatty acids and amino acids in their brains compared with pups being raised in a stress-free environment.

She wondered if it was possible to normalize a stressed pup’s development by feeding it a diet rich in the specific nutrients its brain would be lacking. To find out, the researchers first fed a supplemented diet to the mothers so it would pass through their milk, then continued to provide it in the pups’ feed for two weeks after they were weaned. A few months later, the researchers tested the now adult mice in learning and memory. Unlike stressed mice that had never received an enriched diet, these mice did not display cognitive impairments.

( How wild animals cope with stress—from overeating to sleepless nights. )

“I was surprised that changing the nutrition could have such a powerful effect, because it’s such an easy intervention,” Korosi says.

If further studies provide more evidence of the nutritional pathway, she says, there would be a strong basis for supplementing the diets of infants born to mothers living in stressful conditions.

Developing an early warning system for stress

Katie McLaughlin, a psychologist at the University of Oregon, is investigating how mental health problems arise in adolescents as they’re going through a particularly vulnerable time in their lives, transitioning to adulthood.

She and her colleagues are still collecting data , but a smaller, precursor study tracking 30 teenagers offers clues about what the researchers might learn—and how it might help them identify stress before it goes too far.  

In that study, McLaughlin found that the extent of stress experienced by a subject in the month before their lab visit changed how their brain responded to emotionally impactful information such as when they were shown a picture of a threatening face. The brain’s prefrontal cortex, which helps regulate emotions, showed less activation when the subject had experienced higher levels of stress.

McLaughlin is optimistic that data from the ongoing study will help pinpoint changes in behavior as well as brain activity that predict the emergence of mental health problems like anxiety and depression. This could enable the development of targeted interventions delivered to teenagers at just the right time, she says. If the identified marker of stress were a sudden decrease in sleep duration or a sharp decline in social interactions, for example, it would be possible to push the intervention out to the individual on their smartphone.

“Like, here’s a reminder about good sleep hygiene, or this might be a good time to check in with your counselor at school about what’s been going on in your life,” McLaughlin explains.

( ‘Hysterical strength’? Fight or flight? This is how your body reacts to extreme stress. )

Learn more about stress and how to manage it

Preventing inflammation caused by chronic stress.

Gaining a deeper understanding of how stress affects the immune system may also help find a way to reverse those effects.

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In the 1980s, psychologist Janice Kiecolt-Glaser and her virologist husband, Ronald Glaser, began exploring the physiological impact of stress on two notably stressed segments of society: medical students and older caregivers. The researchers found the students’ immune systems were less robust when they were taking exams than during non-exam times—and that stress altered the body’s response to vaccines.

Researchers then administered the flu and pneumonia vaccines to individuals responsible for a spouse with dementia. Unlike medical students taking exams, who were likely stressed only in the short term, these people were experiencing unrelenting stress. When tested at set periods after inoculation, they had fewer antibodies compared with a control group —they couldn’t maintain their protective response. “That gave us good evidence that the changes brought on by stress were biologically meaningful,” says Kiecolt-Glaser, now an emeritus professor at the Ohio State University.

Around the same time, researchers led by Sheldon Cohen, now emeritus professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon University, delivered cold-causing viruses into the nostrils of about 400 adult volunteers in the U.K. “The more stress they reported prior to our exposing them to a virus, the higher the risk was for them to develop a cold,” says Cohen. The duration and type of stress mattered: Chronic economic or interpersonal stress were what really put people at high risk—and the longer it went on, the greater the susceptibility to falling sick.

Cohen and his colleagues also learned that when exposed to viruses, chronically stressed people tended to produce an excess of cytokines—proteins that serve as messengers of the immune system, traveling to sites of infection and injury and activating inflammation and other cellular processes to protect the body. Too many cytokines cause an excess of inflammation.

Researchers still don’t know enough about how stress alters the immune system’s ability to regulate cytokines to devise an intervention to reduce the inflammation, but in one way, these findings signal some hope: There are clear targets for more work to be done.  

Understanding stress on a cellular level

The future of understanding and combating stress may lie in our DNA.

In 2023, Ursula Beattie, then a doctoral student at Tufts University, and her colleagues found possible evidence that stress can overwhelm DNA’s repair mechanisms . In their study, researchers repeatedly tapped on sparrow cages with pens, played the radio loudly, and other actions designed to cause distress but no physical harm. Blood and tissue samples from the sparrows after three weeks of this unpleasant treatment revealed damage to the DNA. “It’s like if you had two pieces of string coiled up, just like DNA, and you took a pair of scissors and cut them,” Beattie says.

While these kinds of double-strand breaks in DNA occur all the time in sparrows and other species, including humans, the damage is typically reversed through self-repair mechanisms. In a chronic-stress setting, “those repair mechanisms get overwhelmed, which is how we see a buildup of DNA damage,” Beattie explains. The damage in the birds appears to be the most severe in cells of the liver, she adds, suggesting that for humans, too, the extent and type of damage inflicted by stress might be different for different tissues of the body.

Separately, Kiecolt-Glaser and psychologist Lisa Christian at OSU are conducting a longitudinal study to determine whether chronic stress ages you more quickly. If results support a smaller, earlier study, it appears that chronically stressed caregivers not only are more likely to get sick and heal more slowly but they also show signs of accelerated aging.

We’re still learning how deep stress goes into our bodies. But these exploratory findings mean we’re getting closer to solving the puzzle that is stress, which promises a future where we can better meet the ongoing demand for change.

( 20 stress-relief gifts for the frazzled friend in your life. )

Related Topics

• MENTAL HEALTH
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‘Hysterical strength’? Fight or flight? This is how your body reacts to extreme stress

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The benefits—and downsides—of taking ashwagandha

Many people wean off antidepressants too quickly. That can be dangerous.

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Psychology Discussion

Essay on stress: it’s meaning, effects and coping with stress.

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Essay on Stress: It’s Meaning, Effects and Coping with Stress!

Stress is a very common problem being faced today. Every individual will experience stress in one or the other time.

The term stress has many definitions, Lazarus and Folkman (1984) have defined stress as “an internal state which can be caused by physical demands of body or by environmental and social situations, which are evaluated as potentially harmful, uncontrollable, or exceeding our resources for coping”.

According to David Fontana “stress is a demand made upon the adaptive capacities of the mind and body”.

These definitions indicate that stress represents those conditions under which individuals have demand made upon them, that they cannot physically or psychologically meet, leading to breakdown at one or other of these levels.

Stress is usually thought of in negative terms. But ii can manifest itself in both positive and negative way. It is said to be positive when the situation offers an opportunity for one, to gain something.

Eustress (the Greek word ‘eu’ means good) is the term used to describe positive stress. It is often viewed as motivator, since in its absence the individual lacks the spirit necessary for peak performance. Distress is the term used to indicate negative stress.

Almost any change in the environment- even a pleasant change such as a joyful trip- demands some coping, and a little stress is useful in helping us to adapt. But beyond some point, stress becomes a ‘distress’.

What acts to produce distress varies from person to person, but some events seem to be stressors for every person.

Examples of stressors are:

1. Injury or infections of the body, dangers in environment, major changes or transitions in life which force us to cope in new ways.

2. Physical stressors like noise, pollutions, climatic changes, etc.

3. Hustles of everyday life centering on work, family, social activities, health and finances.

4. Frustrations and conflicts.

The physical, environmental and social causes of the stress state are termed stressors. Once induced by stressors the internal stress state can then lead to various responses. On the other hand, psychological responses such as anxiety, hopelessness, depression, irritability, and a general feeling of not being able to cope with the world, can result from the stress state.

Stress cycles:

Stress has a number of immediate effects. If the stressors are maintained, long-term behavioural, physiological, emotional and cognitive effects occur. If these effects hinder adaptation to the environment or create discomfort and distress, they themselves become stressors and, tend to perpetuate a ‘cycle’ of distress.

Example, a patient spends more money on treatment, may experience continued stress even after the cure of the disease, because repayment of debt cause stress for long time in him or a patient whose leg is amputated after accident may continue to worry about it.

On the other hand, many people have developed ways of coping with stressors, so that they are able to respond adaptively. This is the ‘wellness cycle’. Teaching people adaptive ways of handling stress, so as to promote the wellness cycle is an important part of the newly emerging field of behavioural medicine.

Effects of stress:

Stress is not always harmful. In fact, it is recognised that low levels of stress can even helps for better performance. For example, a student can prepare well for forthcoming examination only if he has some stress. However, excess level of stress is undoubtedly harmful.

The effects of stress are divided into three categories:

a. Physiological effects:

Commonly appearing stress related bodily disorders are-peptic ulcers, hypertension, chronic fatigue, hormonal changes, increased heart rate, difficulty in breathing, numbness of limbs, heart disease and reduction in immunity, etc.

b. Psychological effects:

Anxiety, depression, hopelessness, helplessness, anger, nervousness, irritability, tension and boredom may be experienced.

c. Behavioural changes:

Decreasing efficiency, making mistakes, inability to take decisions, under eating or overeating, sleeplessness, increased smoking, develop addiction to alcohol and drugs, forgetfulness, hypersensitivity or passiveness, accident proneness and interpersonal difficulties are seen.

Stress is linked to disorders such as cancer and heart disorders. There are several mediating variables that determine whether stress becomes dangerous or not. For example, good coping mechanisms which can help to reduce stress, having good social support, often help in reducing stress.

Perception of stress or how a person views stress is also very important. For example, a person may not perceive a situation as stressful whereas the same situation may be perceived as highly stressful by some other person.

People with personality type ‘A’ are more prone to be affected by stress related disorders like cardiovascular diseases. Personality character like hardiness or emotional stability helps to withstand effects of stress.

Hans Selye, a renowned biological scientist defines stress as the nonspecific response of the body to any demand upon it. He termed the body’s response to stressors the “General Adaptation Syndrome” (GAS).

The GAS consists of 3 stages:

1. Alarm reaction:

It is an emergency response of the body. In this stage prompt responses of the body, many of them mediated by the sympathetic nervous system, prepare us to cope with the stressor here and now.

2. Stage of resistance:

If the stressor continues to be present, the stage of resistance begins, wherein the body resists the effects of the continuous stressor. During this stage certain hormonal responses of the body are an important line of defence in resisting the effects of stressors (For example, release of ACTH).

3. Stage of exhaustion:

In this stage, the body’s capacity to respond to both continuous and new stressors has been seriously compromised. The person will no longer be able to face stressor and he will finally succumb to it. The person may develop psychosomatic illness.

The stress leads to many psychosomatic diseases. Treatment for such diseases involves medical help for the physical problems and, at the same time, attention to the psychological factors producing the stress.

Coping with Stress :

There are different ways of coping with stress such as: confronting (facing), distancing (remoteness), self-control, seeking social support, accepting responsibility, escape or avoid (from the stressor), plan a problem solving strategy and positive reappraisal.

Usually two broad type of coping types are seen- Instrumental coping and Emotional coping.

In instrumental coping, a person focuses on the problem and tries to solve it. In emotional coping, the focus is more on the feelings generated by the problem.

Today, self- help remedies, Do to yourself approaches, weight loss clinics and diets, health foods and physical exercise are being given much attention in mass media. People are actually taking more responsibility to maintain good health.

However, some specific techniques to eliminate or to manage more effectively the inevitable, prolonged stress are as follows:

Good physical exercise like walking, jogging, swimming, riding bicycle, playing soft ball, tennis are necessary to cope with stress.

Relaxation:

Whether a person simply takes it easy once in a while or uses specific relaxation techniques such as bio-feedback, or meditation, the intent is to eliminate the immediately stressful situation or manage a prolonged stressful situation more effectively.

Taking it easy may mean curling up with a good book on an easy chair or watching some light programme on television or listening to a light music. Meditation is scientifically proved to be very useful, both physically and mentally to cope with stress.

Behavioural self-control:

By deliberately managing the antecedents and the consequence of their own behaviour, people can achieve self-control. Besides managing their own behaviour to reduce stress, people can also become more aware of their limits and of ‘red flags’ that signal trouble ahead. They can avoid people or situations that they know will put them under stress.

Maladaptive strategies, rigid strategies or relying on one type of coping method lead to increase in the stress. Social support helps reduce the effect of stress. People may provide help, advice, material support or moral support that helps to reduce stress.

In addition to the above, psychotherapy (Beck’s cognitive therapy, Ellis’s rational emotive therapy and Meichenbaum’s stress- inoculation training), skill training, environmental changes, Bio-feedback (control of physical signs such as Blood pressure, headache, etc), family therapy, group therapy, hypnosis, yoga, are found to be very useful. Finally, uses of drugs are some of the other strategies adopted in coping with stress.

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Home — Essay Samples — Nursing & Health — Psychiatry & Mental Health — Stress

Essays About Stress

Hook examples for stress essays, "the modern epidemic: unmasking stress's grip" hook.

"In our fast-paced world, stress has become an epidemic, silently gripping lives. Unmask the hidden turmoil it causes and its far-reaching consequences on mental and physical health."

"Stress: The Silent Health Menace" Hook

"Stress may not always be visible, but its impact on our health is undeniable. Explore the physiological and psychological toll that stress takes on the human body."

"From Chaos to Calm: Strategies for Stress Management" Hook

"Amidst life's chaos, discover effective strategies for managing stress. Delve into mindfulness, relaxation techniques, and ways to regain a sense of calm amidst the storm."

"Workplace Stress: Balancing Ambition and Well-Being" Hook

"Balancing career ambitions with well-being is a constant challenge. Examine the sources of workplace stress and discuss how individuals and organizations can foster a healthier work environment."

"The Domino Effect: Stress's Impact on Relationships" Hook

"Stress doesn't only affect individuals; it ripples through relationships. Analyze how stress can strain personal connections and explore ways to strengthen bonds under pressure."

"A Stress-Free Tomorrow: Shaping a Resilient Future" Hook

"Imagine a future with less stress. Discuss the importance of resilience and mental health awareness in building a society that can withstand the pressures of modern life."

"Beyond Coping: Thriving in the Face of Stress" Hook

"It's not just about coping; it's about thriving. Share stories of individuals who have turned adversity into opportunities for growth and empowerment."

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Coping Up with Stress

How to reduce your stress levels, the problem of anxiety and stress and its treatment, the importance of stress management, sources of stress in youth, a calm mind is a healthy mind, the impact of stress on academic success in college students, stress and its main sources, overview of biological predispositions and risk factors associated with depression, stress and its role in our life, work/life balance and stress management, the influence that arousal, stress, and anxiety can have on sport performance, work stress, health and employees, stress related to job and ways to manage it, comparison of stress rates among children and adults, hypnotherapeutic treatments for stress, anxiety and phobias, stress and anxiety as the distractors of an athlete’s attention, psychological wellbeing and psychology distress, stress in our lives: effective communication in workplace under pressure.

Stress, in psychology and biology, is any environmental or physical pressure that elicits a response from an organism.

Stress may be acute, chronic, or traumatic. Acute stress is characterized by immediate danger that occurs within a short span of time. Chronic stress is characterized by the persistent presence of sources of frustration or anxiety that a person encounters every day. Traumatic stress is characterized by the occurrence of a life-threatening event that evokes fear and helplessness.

In psychology, researchers generally classify the different types of stressors into four categories: 1) crises/catastrophes, 2) major life events, 3) daily hassles/microstressors, and 4) ambient stressors.

Stress causes muscular aches and tightness. Stress can impact mental performance. Women appear more prone to stress than men. Chronic stress can cause substance abuse.

Relevant topics

• Mental Health
• Eating Disorders
• Drug Addiction

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Yale Climate Connections

Climate change is affecting mental health literally everywhere

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Farmers who can’t sleep, worrying they’ll lose everything amid increasing drought. Youth struggling with depression over a future that feels hopeless. Indigenous people grief-stricken over devastated ecosystems. For all these people and more, climate change is taking a clear toll on mental health — in every part of the world.  

Experts shared these examples and others during a recent summit organized by the Connecting Climate Minds network that brought together hundreds of scientists, doctors, community leaders, and other experts from dozens of countries who have spent the past year studying how climate change is harming mental health in their regions. 

Although mental illnesses are often viewed as an individual problem, the experts made clear that climate change is contributing to mental health challenges everywhere. 

The Connecting Climate Minds youth ambassador from Borneo, Jhonatan Yuditya Pratama, said his Indigenous community views nature as a sacred extension of being. Seeing the devastation of climate change on ancestral lands has brought his community “a profound sense of grief and loss,” he said.

“For us, mental health isn’t just about individuals,” he said. “It’s about the collective well-being of our communities and the land itself. When nature suffers, so do we.”  

Extreme weather and air pollution are taking a toll 

In her keynote, Marina Romanello, executive director of the Lancet Countdown and a Connecting Climate Minds advisory board member, explained the key ways that climate change threatens mental health. 

• Extreme heat is associated with increased self-harm and violence as well as more general feelings of negativity. It also leads to feelings of isolation when people feel trapped inside their relatively cooler homes.
• Wildfire or extreme weather stokes anxiety leading up to an event — and afterward — that can lead to PTSD or depression for survivors who have seen cherished places or lives lost.
• Farmers, fisherpeople, and others whose livelihoods are tied to the environment experience chronic stress, worry, and depression over things they can’t control, like extreme weather, habitat loss, and drought.
• Water scarcity increases stress for people in charge of seeking and transporting household water. Water scarcity also makes it hard for people to stay clean, potentially leading to isolation, loneliness, and depression. 
• Air pollution can keep kids out of school, leading to social isolation and, over time, a sense of hopelessness about the future. 

What’s more, people are experiencing the compounding effects of multiple disasters, said Emma Lawrance, who leads the Climate Cares Centre, a U.K.-based team that researches and supports mental health in the face of environmental crises: “With more frequent disasters, people can no longer recover psychologically from one before another occurs,” Lawrance said.  

And these escalating hazards are exacerbating social inequality, said Alaa Abelgawad, the Connecting Climate Minds youth ambassador representing northern Africa and western Asia. “[It’s] manifesting as anxiety, depression, and a profound sense of disempowerment among marginalized populations.”

Who is most vulnerable to climate change and mental health challenges? 

Many Indigenous communities have already been facing intergenerational trauma and a sense of deep disconnect from land and culture. Recurring climate devastation can intensify feelings of grief, stress, and disillusionment about the future, contributing to increased rates of addiction and suicide, participants said. 

Farmers, too, are among the most vulnerable. Changing seasonal norms, increasing drought, and a higher risk of severe weather are directly affecting their livelihoods. 

Sacha Wright, head of research at the youth-focused organization Force of Nature and part of Connecting Climate Minds’s “lived experience” working group, said that in Kenya, many small farmers are struggling with declining harvests and out of desperation have resorted to cutting down trees for charcoal. Though they felt they had no choice, some said cutting down the trees made the whole situation feel even worse. She spoke of high rates of depression, hopelessness, trauma, and a widespread feeling of “not knowing what to do.” 

For young people, climate change can also evoke a sense of hopelessness and powerlessness. In the Yucatan, one young person Wright interviewed said the only choices in life there are to migrate or enter the military. 

“When I see drought, I see my community leaving school and going to the military,” the person interviewed said. 

Mercy Njeru, a member of Connecting Climate Mind’s sub-Saharan Africa working group, said extreme heat is often leading to school closures across the region, setting youth up for failure and a sense of hopelessness. 

“When it’s so hot and you’re so anxious you can’t work, you can’t do anything because you’re feeling anxious or you’re feeling so sad from all the heat around you,” she said. 

In addition to environmental impacts, generational inequity and a sense of moral distress also contribute to anxiety for many youth. Britt Wray, director of Stanford Medicine’s Special Initiative on Climate Change and Mental Health, said she hears from many young people that power holders aren’t taking sufficient action, instead depending entirely on their generation to solve climate change. 

“This offloading of responsibility — without adequate partnership from the elder and more powerful contingents among us — can make burdensome climate anxiety and distress much worse,” she said.

Read: What baby boomers can do about climate change, according to Bill McKibben

What can be done to protect mental health as the climate changes? 

To help address the rising tide of mental health challenges, governments and public health leaders need to know exactly what kinds of impacts people are experiencing in their own communities.

First step: looking at experiences in every region. 

“We will only be successful if we can continue to connect and engage people from very different sectors, from neighborhoods all the way to multilateral organizations,” said Pamela Collins, chair of the department of mental health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. 

Other examples of ways forward include everything from expanding health insurance to include climate-related mental health impacts to ensuring government policy supports people whose work has been affected by climate change to improve their job prospects. Several participants also spoke of the importance of returning to the wisdom of ancestral knowledge to address climate change in general, including mental health impacts. 

Other specific solutions offered by Connecting Climate Minds participants include:

• More public green space. Collins, the Hopkins professor, cited a study highlighting the need for more accessible green space in cities, a move that could have multiple positive outcomes, including on mental health. Forest bathing , AKA spending dedicated time in nature, reduces stress and anxiety, increases serotonin production, and improves mood regulation and overall mental health — all while being low-intensity and low-cost, said Niaya Harper Igarashi, part of Connecting Climate Mind’s eastern and southeastern Asia working group. 
• Focusing on reducing inequity. Making sure everyone has access to nutritious food, clean air and water, and sustainable energy sources is good for the climate and community. 
• Talking helps. In many communities, mental health is a taboo topic. By talking more openly about it on a personal level, in social or spiritual settings, at the dinner table, or in your doctor’s office, individuals can combat stigma and contribute to a growing understanding of these issues. 
• Meeting people where they are. From using vocabulary that makes sense for different communities to meeting people’s basic needs, solutions are most effective when they’re tailored for what real people are actually going through. For example, Wray, the Stanford expert, said meeting kids where they are includes screening for climate distress where many of them are every day: at school.

Lawrance, the Climate Cares lead who helped organize the summit, said it was heartening to see solutions being advanced around the world. 

“The dialogue showed this really strongly: that many solutions do already exist,” she said. “And it’s by learning from each other’s ways of knowing and doing that we can best find the ones that work for our context, and ensure people experiencing the worst climate impacts have a future where they cannot just survive, but thrive.”

We help millions of people understand climate change and what to do about it. Help us reach even more people like you.

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Daisy Simmons, assistant editor at Yale Climate Connections, is a creative, research-driven storyteller with 25 years of professional editorial experience. With a purposeful focus on covering solutions... More by Daisy Simmons

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• Yale J Biol Med
• v.95(1); 2022 Mar

Focus: The Science of Stress

Introduction: the science of stress.

The term stress was widely popularized in its biological connotation in 1936 by Hans Selye, who defined it as “the non-specific response of the body to any demand for change” [ 1 ]. Stress was originally understood to be a collection of peripheral symptoms that accompany a variety of chronic illnesses affecting different parts of the body. However, since its conception, the term has taken on a broader meaning and encompasses the body’s response to any mental, emotional, or physical disturbance. It is now well accepted that stress is both a symptom and a major risk factor for anxiety, migraines, substance abuse, obesity, and heart disease [ 2 ]. In 2007, the American Psychological Association launched a Stress in America™ survey to document national levels of stress, assess mental and physical impacts, and correlate stress intensity to external factors, including the political climate and the state of the economy. The outcomes of subsequent surveys have established stress as a major contributor to the national mental health crisis that disproportionately impacts different groups across the country [ 3 ].

In a perspectives piece on the neuroscience of stress, Simisola Johnson discusses the evolution of the stress response and the role of the nervous system in eliciting neuroendocrine and behavioral responses that promote survival. However, as opposed to acute stress that can have beneficial effects, chronic stress can lead to severe impairments in circuits that regulate neuroendocrine signaling. For example, in addition to the direct biological consequences of SARS-CoV2 infection on the brain, chronic stress associated with the COVID-19 pandemic impacts similar neuronal signaling pathways in the CNS and PNS that hamper normal physiological function. In addition to impacting the brain, chronic stress also alters metabolism at the cellular level. Using a house sparrow model system, Beattie et al. combined chronic psychological stress and daily food restriction to test whether chronic stress decreases the animals’ ability to cope with acute stressors. The study measures a variety of parameters including levels of metabolites, total activity, and markers of the neuroendocrine stress response to assess overall stress responses. Both of these papers highlight the importance of studying the compounding effects of stress that are increasingly prevalent in a post-pandemic era.

Stress experienced by mothers during pregnancy can have deleterious effects on both the infant’s neuropsychiatric and behavioral health. Various studies have found associations between maternal prenatal distress and child developmental outcomes. Children exposed to prenatal stress are at increased risk for displaying disruptive behavioral problems, possessing lower motor function, and even developing neuropsychiatric illnesses at later stages. However, in a self-reported study examining the initiation and course of breastfeeding and room-sharing, Simons et al. found that there was no link between the quality of maternal caregiving and maternal prenatal distress. Although they found that levels of prenatal evening cortisol (a physiological marker of stress) at the end of pregnancy are positively correlated with their study parameters, a lack of homology with other stress markers urges future studies to examine alternative mechanisms. Davis et al. examine how increased reactive oxygen species in the embryonic brain generated due to prenatal stress affect the morphology and activity of neuronal cells during development and in mature brains. The authors found that treatment with antioxidant agents reversed the observed effects on neuronal cells but did not prevent behavioral impacts. The results of these studies emphasize a need to study intergenerational transmission of stress and its long-term effects.

The World Health Organization estimates that approximately 3.6% of the world’s population has experienced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) [ 4 ]. Risk factors for developing PTSD include exposure to a traumatic life event, lack of social support, and a genetic predisposition. Liu et al. examined the relationship between personality type, social support, and prevalence of PTSD among Shidu Parents in China. They determined that those with social support and extroverted personalities were least likely to develop PTSD after losing a child. Nagy Youssef provides a perspectives piece on studying the transgenerational epigenetic inheritance of trauma. Conducting more studies on the inheritance of DNA methylation across generations can provide new insights into the impact of trauma and resilience across communities.

In this issue, the biological and social dynamics of stress are examined. Original research, reviews, and perspectives are presented on how stress affects development, metabolism, and various cellular and organ level processes of physiology. We hope this issue contributes to an emerging field and highlights the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the wide implications of stress.

• Selye H. The Stress of Life . New York: McGraw-Hill; 1956. [ Google Scholar ]
• What is stress? The American Institute of Stress . 2017. Retrieved March 22, 2022. Available from: https://www.stress.org/what-is-stress
• American Psychological Association . 2020. Stress in America™ 2020: A National Mental Health Crisis. American Psychological Association . Retrieved March 22, 2022. Available from: https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2020/report-october
• World Health Organization . 2013. Who releases guidance on mental health care after trauma. World Health Organization . Retrieved March 23, 2022. Available from: https://www.who.int/news/item/06-08-2013-who-releases-guidance-on-mental-health-care-after-trauma#:~:text=Traumatic%20events%20and%20loss%20a%20common%20experience&text=An%20estimated%203.6%25%20of%20the,previous%20year%2C%20the%20study%20showed