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Stress

 

             Stress plays a key role in daily life, influencing - if not governing - happiness, productivity and health. Stress is known to cause various psychiatric disorders involving anxiety and depression, including posttraumatic stress disorder, major depression, generalized anxiety, and multiple personality disorders. The more stress one puts on themselves the weaker one's immune system becomes. With a weakened immune system we become susceptible to disease and injury. Stress is an adaptive response. It's the body's reaction to an event that is seen as emotionally disturbing, disquieting, or threatening. To prepare for an event, the body increases its heart rate and blood pressure; more blood is then sent to your heart and muscles, and your respiration rate increases. .
             In the first stage of stress, alarm, the body mobilizes its "fight or flight" defenses, either to resist the stress-causing factor or adapt to it. In this stage, the pituitary-adrenocortical system pours hormones into the bloodstream. The pulse quickens, the lungs take in more oxygen to fuel the muscles, blood sugar increases to supply added energy, digestion slows, and perspiration increases. In the second stage of stress, resistance, the body begins to repair the incidental damage caused by the arousal in the alarm stage. If the stressful situation is resolved, the stress symptoms vanish. If the stressful situation continues, however, a third stage, exhaustion, sets in, and the body's adaptive energy runs out. This stage can continue until some vital organs are affected, and then disease or even death can occur. There are three types of stress, mental, physical, and chemical. These different variations of stress all cause similar effects to one's body.
             In a recent article from the Journal of Home and Family, Drs. Nicole A. Roberts and Robert W. Levenson of UC Berkeley evaluated stress at work and its effect on marriage. In the study 19 male police officers and their wives provided information about themselves and their marriages.


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