TURN-UP YOUR SOUND FOR AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM MARK KENT
Welcome to Day 2 of your 7 Day Super Stress Solution Course. In the first day you learned about your response to stress. You now understand the General Adaptation Syndrome and the 4 stages your body go through when experiencing stress. Now in Day 2 you will learn how to determine if you are suffering from stress.
Super Stress Solution Day 2 My stress response - How does it work? / How Do you Know?
Trying to determine whether you are suffering from stress is simple yet most people including medical specialists often misdiagnose towards genetic or term based causes or tend to over generalize the effects of stress for every malady that is presented to them. Really we are somewhere in the middle with scientific knowledge that genetic weak links can predispose individuals to disease when stress overcomes there daily lives and there ability to cope with it. That's why you may notice your family has a particular constellation of symptoms i.e. bad back, high blood pressure, or head aches when under duress. Although the typical response to stress is reactive and temporary it is protracted unresolved stress that causes the fight/flight alarm system to stay on thus taxing your body's physical, emotional and psychological resources. This is when specific stress symptoms can emerge and if not dealt with can evolve into chronic illness and interferes significantly with your quality of life. We all respond to stress through four basics systems.
Behaviorally - Do we become more active or passive under duress? Do we tend to eat more or rely upon alcohol and drugs to cope or on the other hand do we go to the gym, learn to exercise and take relaxation and meditation classes.
Physiological - We experience heightened muscle tension, elevated blood pressure, and rapid heart rate.
Emotionally - We can experience heightened anxiety, depression, anger or prolonged frustration.
Cognitive - Increased cognitive activity, such as distractibility and inability to focus and concentrate.
Although all four of these responses can happen very quickly, its when these four systems continue to stay in an alert state that exhausts your body and causes damage. For you to achieve extreme levels of distress you will typically evolve through six stages to develop more serious long term stress related disorders.
The first stage is the mild stress stage where you experience zest, unusually acute perceptions, excessive nervous energy and at times positive excitement. This stage can be deceiving as we may initially perceive it as positive yet it is the beginning of a more serious stress response.
The second stage unpleasant effects of stress begin to appear. You may notice your energy resources are insufficient for the daily demands. You may begin to experience sustained fatigue, stomach illness, muscle tightness and a sense of tension.
The third stage is simply an increase in the frequency and intensity of the symptoms in stage two. You may notice stressors that you easily handled before are now more difficult to cope with. You may suffer from sleep disturbances and loss of drive and initiative.
The fourth stage - this stage is important because there is now a shift from primarily physiological reaction and symptoms to now include emotional, psychological and social symptoms as well. For example from a physical point of view if you are fatigued it takes more effort to enjoy activities. This results in less social interaction, less fun and vitality.
The fifth stage is when the symptoms of the fourth stage become more pronounced and impairing your life. You may experience difficulty in managing fairly simple tasks along with pervasive fears, anxieties, sense of helplessness and possibly bouts of reactive depression.
The sixth and final stage can be terrifying and often results in a significant impairment in one's work, home and social life. There is a constant triggering of the fight/flight system for example anxiety attacks causing panic and severe symptoms such as rapid heart rate, high blood pressure, inability to sleep, memory and concentration difficulties, and sheer exhaustion leading which may lead to the onset of depression.
Because most people are not aware of these symptoms, they will often wait too late to get help or tend to go to a doctor for a quick fix. However the development of stress related disorders takes place over time consequentially as well to improve your skills it takes time to learn and adapt more appropriate responses to reducing and/or eliminating stress in your life.
