When you receive a threat, your nervous system responds by releasing a flood of stress hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol. These hormones rouse the body for emergency action. Your heart pounds faster, muscles tighten, blood pressure rises, breath quickens, and your senses become sharper.
These physical changes increase your strength and stamina, speed your reaction time, and enhance your focus, preparing you to either fight or flee (the body’s stress response) from the danger at hand.
These and myriad other immediate and automatic responses have been exquisitely honed over the lengthy course of human evolution as life-saving measures to facilitate primitive man’s ability to deal with physical challenges.
However, the nature of stress for modern man is not an occasional confrontation with a saber-toothed tiger or a hostile warrior, but rather a host of emotional threats like getting stuck in traffic and fights with family members, some of which occur several times a day.
Stress is an interesting phenomenon. As mentioned in Part 1, it means different things to different people. What we individually consider to be stressful is largely a matter of our perception. Indeed, our perceptions are realities, and so what we think is posing a threat is actually doing so by virtue of our established belief system.
“Much of our stress is self-generated,” Chris Hinde, Sun City resident, said. “These stressors are generated because we are victims of our own thoughts.”
Remember, anything that puts high demands on you or forces you to adjust, good or bad, can be a stressor. There are many kinds of stressors or stress-causing pressures and situations: physical (the response to being frightened); emotional (the loss of a loved one); psychological (obsessive thoughts); spiritual (loss of faith); and psychosomatic (mental/emotional/psychological components coming into play where there is an illness with no apparent definable biological cause).
Aging brings new stressors into play:
1. The death of a spouse
2. Declining health
a. Accidents causing health problems
b. Ailments causing pain and disability
c. Life-threatening illnesses
d. Unpleasant side effects from medicine and medical treatments
e. Sleep disturbances
f. Loss of our senses
g. Lack of ability to move and exercise
h. Financial issues
Indeed, as we continue to age, stressors can be found even in the performance of simple household chores or the fear of falling outside as we take brief, routine walks. On the other side of the coin, for us Sun Citians who volunteer and socialize in too many venues, there is the stressor of “being too busy.”
It’s important to learn how to recognize when your stress levels are out of control. When overwhelmed by stress, some people become angry and agitated. Others withdraw or space out. Still, others are highly tense under the surface but look “frozen” on the exterior to those around them. You might be suffering from aches and pains, eating more or less than normal, sleeping too much or too little.
Other psychological and medical problems, of course, may also be causing these stress warnings. Always check with your doctor to determine whether your symptoms are stress-related.
