We all feel stressed at times. It may be something relatively trivial that causes us to feel this way, or it may be something more serious, such as the death of a loved one. Psychologists believe that people feel stress when there is a mismatch between how we perceive the problem and how we perceive our ability to cope. Our body can be seen to respond to stress by increases in heart rate, blood pressure and respiration rates. There is also a strong link between stress and heart disease, ulcers, diabetes, and cancer.
Ideally, we would like to be able to remove the things that cause us stress (stressors) from our lives, but this is often impractical or impossible. However, a number of techniques have been found to be effective in reducing that level of stress that is felt.
Biofeedback can be used to provide information (feedback) about certain biological functions, such as heart rate, blood pressure or sweating to alert the individual to the symptoms of stress. The person is then taught a series of techniques to control these symptoms. However, the equipment can be expensive and rather impractical. Furthermore, it may take many weeks or months to learn to control stress in this way.
Drugs can also be used to reduce the symptoms of stress. However, although they are fast acting and may be effective in the short-term, there may also be unpleasant and dangerous side-effects. Also, the body begins to build up a tolerance for these drugs so that we need to take more and more to have the same effect. In the long-term, we may become addicted to them.
A number of other techniques have also been devised to reduce stress – such as meditation, stress inoculation, and cognitive behavioural therapy. But all of them have strengths and weaknesses.
Currently, there is no quick fix solution to stress. Perhaps stress is nature’s way of telling us to take it easy…. or else!!!
