How stress affects our health

In the rapidly changing scenario of todays hi- tech world, work is posing incredible demands to the individuals. Speed of work, meeting deadlines, people is having less and less time for them. Job security does no longer exist. Both husband and wife have to work to meet the both ends. Economies of most of the countries are unstable. All these factors are adding to the stress of our day to day life. Stress is there to stay and will increase in the days to come.

Let us see what is stress actually? How stress affects our health and how we can cope up with the inevitable factor “STRESS.”


What is Stress?

• Stress is produced when the human body or mind is acted upon by forces that disrupt its equilibrium and produces strain.
• The adverse factors may be physical in the form of injury and disease or, as commonly understood, psychological such as fear, anxiety or crisis.
• The existence of one form of stress tends to diminish resistance of the body to the effects of other forms of stress.
• When our system is unable to handle the stress, it produces pathological changes and disease.

Reaction of our body to stress:

Our body reacts to stress in three stages:

1. Alarm Reaction, wherein the body recognizes the stressful factor and produces the hormones necessary in fighting it. In this stage, heart starts beating fast, blood pressure and blood sugar rise, pupils of the eyes are dilated and digestion is slowed.
2. Following the first stage is the stage of resistance or adaptation in which the body begins to repair the effects of the first stage; the acute symptoms disappear or diminish.
3. If stress continues, adaptation fails, bringing about disturbances in the balance of hormones in the body. This is the third stage of exhaustion. The body can no longer respond to stress. As a consequence, a variety of diseases appear.

Common diseases develop due to stress.



Human are gifted by god by his intelligence. This intelligence itself has become the major factor for stress in them. Animals are not stressed as they cannot think or predict the danger. Man for his thinking capability can perceive the danger, even when the cause of stress does no longer exist. Ultimately, some of them cannot cope up with the stress and exhaustion sets in, resulting in different pathological conditions or, diseases.

The common diseases encountered in the stressed individuals are

• Emotional disturbances.
• High blood pressure.
• Heart attack.
• Stroke.
• Bronchial asthma.
• Ulcer of the stomach.

All these conditions are strongly related to stress, though many other factors play a part in their causation. Stress diminishes the body's resistance to other factors, thus precipitating the disease or facilitating its development.

This article is republished in India study Channel

Read stress management methods here