Paper Example on Stress as a Cause of Illness

Stress is caused by a package of reactions that is the General Adaptation Syndrome. It is as a result of the stressor factors which make the body to mobilize its resources. The body tends to adapt to stress once it is unable to meet the challenges that are posed by the environment. Stress can be of two forms that are the good stress and the bad stress (stress, n.d). Stress can result to serious ill ness to an individual causing more harm to the persons life. The stress can lead to the illness of a person directly or indirectly. What one person may consider as stressing to him/her may not be stress to the other hence stress will differ from one person to another. People will deal with stress differently depending on ones ability to cope with it hence not all people will get ill as a result of the stress. Stress can result in illness such as obesity, diabetes, depression, heart disease and asthma.

Stress result to the illness of an individual when the stressors tend to exceed one's energy to fight it.In Stress (n.d.) the author refers to the general adaptation syndrome as having three phases. These stages include the alarm phase whereby the organism meets a certain threat, the resistance phase where one tries to cope and resist to the threat that is being posed and finally the exhaustion phase whereby the stressors exceeds the energy of an individual. It results to a person becoming weak, fatigue and leading to a persons illness. Stress will lead to the illness of a person considering that it will give rise to the closure of a persons digestion, raise the blood pressure of a person (Stress, n.d).There exists a connection between the psychological processes, the immune function, and the nervous system.

According to the author of Stress psychological factors act as a link of a long chain that connects the stress to illness. Stress can directly result in the heart rate and blood flow in a person to increase. It can be caused by both the positive and negative stress. It results to cholesterol and triglycerides being released into the blood stream that indirectly poses great risks to the heart. All diseases tend to be as a consequence of the relationship that exists between various psychological processes like emotions, attitudes or perceptions. Emotional stress can result to heart attacks as they occur to serious cardiac problems. Such illness can lead to the death of a person especially individuals who have chronic heart problems. Stress can result in worsening of the asthmatic condition of a person. Unhappy emotions such as depression, loneliness, anxiety, and panic can be linked to the cause of illness. Loneliness and stress tend to fight the immune cells, and once they suppress those cells, it results to the eruption of the existing herpes virus. Some parents tend to smoke once they are faced with stress as a way of reducing it but the smoke once inhaled indirectly by another individual can result in asthma as the air they are breathing becomes polluted(Stress,n.d).

In the book Stress, the author discusses the stressors which are powerful and can be linked to the health of an individual declining. It can result in diabetes, pneumonia, ulcers or arthritis. Stress causes higher levels of the hormone cortisol in the body which tends to increase the amount of fat that is deposited in our bodies. Excess fat in the body can result in illness such as obesity. Stress can lead to over eating and excessive drinking. Such bad habits can raise the glucose level which leads to diabetes. According to the author of Stress (n.d) prolonged or severe stress can lead to the destruction of the immune system cells that help in defending the body against foreign invaders (96). It makes one to quickly fall ill once attacked by a bacteria as the cells that fight the disease and infections have already been destroyed. As a result, the stress can easily trigger a headache in a person. It can lead to brain lesions forming quickly which worsens the Alzheimers disease.

In conclusion, people should use measures that will help them to avoid stress to avoid being ill as a result of the stressor factors. Different factors can be associated with the cause of stress such as death, divorce, financial problems and family conflict. Chronic stress can result to influencing every system in the body. It suppresses the immune system of a person leading to various sorts of illness. Early family and environmental influences which include the manner in which a person copes with the everyday stressors help an individual to be able to learn how to cope with stress positively. Newer measures of stress can help in correction of these problems. For example, they can assess one's perception on the rate in which a certain event is stressful to him. Though stress is always considered to exist, it can be reduced.

References

AYDIN, G. (n.d.). Chapter 5 Stress Clash, Stress Deletion, and Stress Movement. A Theory of Stress and Accent, 137-182. doi:10.1515/9783110859935.137