What is stress and why is it needed? Why do we need stress? Pragmatic view Why stress is needed

Stress is a set of protective physiological reactions that occur in the human body in response to the influence of various factors (stressors). Stressors, that is, factors that cause stress, can be a variety of life situations: speaking in front of an unfamiliar audience, visiting the dentist, participating in a competition, family quarrels, the situation in the country...

Which ? And is it possible to live without stress?

Information about anxiety enters the brain through the senses. Then it is transmitted through the nerve endings to the thyroid gland. Having received an alarm signal, this organ immediately releases a large amount of the hormone adrenaline into the blood, which spreads throughout the body. Signals come from the brain - mental tension increases, attention increases, and preparation for action begins. All this happens at lightning speed - tension, and hence stress, increases with amazing speed. Adrenaline speeds up your pulse and breathing and increases your blood pressure.

Stress is necessary. It helps to adapt to new conditions, affects performance, creativity, teaches us to overcome obstacles in life. life path, mobilize your strength and be confident. But at the same time, stress, if it lasts for a long time, can become destructive for a person and lead to psychosomatic diseases (bronchial asthma, ulcers, hypertension, heart disease, memory impairment, weakened immunity).

In what cases is stress constructive and in what cases is it destructive?

Depending on the stimulus that affects a person, two types of stress are distinguished:

• Eustress - action positive emotions, inspiration, creative insight, love.
• Distress (from English - misfortune, malaise) is the effect of negative emotions in situations of grief, misfortune, illness, which reduces the body's resistance to adverse environmental factors, exhausts a person, and prevents him from mobilizing.

Periodic emotional stress is beneficial for the body: it has a positive effect on appearance, mobilizes strength and mental abilities. Eustress mobilizes, activates, and increases tone. Distress, on the contrary, is considered one of the causes of diseases such as gastritis and stomach ulcers, bronchial asthma, diabetes, thyroid disease. You urgently need to escape from distress before it has time to interfere with your life, health, or career. If stress lasts for a long time, it depletes the body's defenses, wearing out its organs and systems - primarily the cardiovascular and nervous systems.

Oddly enough, men bear stress the worst. It is believed that representatives of the stronger half of humanity are prevented from overcoming difficulties by numerous complexes associated with certain stereotypes. “A man is a provider, a leader, a superman. He must live by reason, not by emotions,” he has been told since childhood. Psychologists are sure that if you follow this stereotype, the psychological mechanism of normal emotional response to the situation breaks down. By pushing emotions inside, such a person will sooner or later, but will definitely break down.

The risk group also includes people who suffer from chronic diseases, adolescents, elderly people, and women of Balzac age. Some are due to the weakened state of the body, others are due to problems of the transition period and hormonal changes.

As you can see, stress has positive and negative sides. It is impossible and harmful to live and work or study without stress at all. Under the influence of negative factors, the body’s defense mechanisms are activated, which we must learn to direct in the right direction.

First, take your mind off your problems: play sports, take a walk, visit exhibitions, go to the cinema, theater.

Take only natural sedatives. The medicinal extract will help normalize sleep, reduce stress, calm the body, reduce arterial pressure. The effective therapeutic dose is 300-600 mg per day. Considering that the usual yellow tablets contain from 20 to 60 mg of extract, and in aqueous-alcoholic settings there is more alcohol and water than itself, we recommend choosing modern means containing an effective dosage of valerian extract. One of them is a herbal medicine

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Can stress be good for the body?

The life of a modern person cannot be imagined without serious emotional experiences, anxieties and concerns. You yourself know very well that every day is filled with various events, and not always positive ones: while some make us rejoice and experience happiness, others are accompanied by negative emotions. And we react to such events differently, because each person is individual and has his own mental characteristics.

Most people perceive stress as an undesirable, dangerous, bad phenomenon. But still, in life it often happens that stressful situations are simply necessary. One example of such situations is cases when it is necessary to increase physical or intellectual performance in a short time in order to cope with some problems or solve some important problems. This is where stress acts as an activator of available resources.

Stress has a unique effect on the body - it increases physical strength and mental efficiency. That is why difficult psychological situations that exert pressure contribute to training and strengthening the body. Thanks to this, a stronger defense system is formed and the immune system is strengthened.

Let us also note that American scientists, who were among the first to begin studying stress, its causes and consequences, found that in moments of short-term mental turmoil, some cells of the body begin to work more intensively, namely:

• monocytes that absorb foreign substances;
• neutrophils that fight infections;
• lymphocytes that provide long-term immunity.

And the body becomes stronger due to the fact that the amount of three types of hormones increases:

• adrenaline;
• norepinephrine;
• cortisol.

In addition, repeated experiments have shown that vaccines against various diseases, act more effectively on people who are in a nervous environment than on people who are calm. But for now it's only general information, and it will be better if we add more specifics.

So, what positive effects can short-term stress have:

• Memory improvement. Under stress, and this happens due to the increased production of adrenocorticotropic hormone by the body. This is why, by the way, events that occur under the influence of stress are remembered by a person better than other events and represent a more vivid life experience.
• Boosting immunity. As we have already noted, even a small stressor activates the body’s defense systems. For example, the adrenal gland, which is responsible for regulating stress, optimizes immunity and helps fight viruses and bacteria. The adrenal glands, which produce cortisol, reacting to psycho-emotional stimuli, increase the body’s overall resistance to the action of destructive microorganisms.
• Accelerated recovery. When a person undergoes surgery or recovers from some kind of injury, temporary mental stress occurs, causing the body to actively produce immune cells. These cells are sent to the lymph nodes and skin, thereby accelerating the regeneration of damaged areas.
• Activation of intellectual abilities. Increased emotional stress makes nervous system work at maximum speed, which leads to a more active flow of all thought processes. The brain carries out any intellectual operations many times faster than at rest.
• Increasing the endurance of the nervous system. Stress affects the nervous system in much the same way as physical exercise on the muscles. Immunity to stressful situations is developed. Subsequently, each subsequent stress will be experienced more easily, and the body will begin to spend less resources on overcoming it.
• Improving the functioning of the senses. In moments of short-term stress, the functioning of vision, hearing, touch, and smell improves for a short time, because... the body switches to combat readiness mode. We can say that for a short period of time a person begins to master superpowers.
• Formation of a feeling of attachment. Another interesting observation: stressful situations lead to an increase in the level of oxytocin, which is responsible for the mechanisms of forming a feeling of attachment. For this reason, people who have experienced stress together become closer to each other (if you are interested in such facts, you can satisfy your curiosity with the help of the article “”).

You probably noticed that we often use the term “short-term stress” in the article, and this is not just that. The fact is that psycho-emotional pressure can only be useful if it is short-lived. This is the “secret” of stress, thanks to which brain activity improves and the body’s efficiency in general increases.

Beneficial stress is stress that is one-time in nature and does not last long. In most cases, such stress does not have any serious negative consequences. And this is the main feature that distinguishes it from long-term stress, which brings enormous and very tangible harm to a person’s personality, body and life.

A fine line between benefit and harm

We have already found out that a lot of benefits can be derived from stressful situations, but it is very important, firstly, to understand that stress can harm, and secondly, to understand for yourself where the border between positive and negative stress is. This will help you to deal with events and learn how to react to them correctly.

Many scientists have sought the answer to the question of what is the difference between moderate and chronic stress, and a variety of opinions can be found on this matter. However, all experts agree that if stressful situations occur once and a person has no further contact with stress factors, there is no need to fear negative consequences.

But if sources of psycho-emotional stress act systematically, then you should prepare for serious consequences. Regular stress is a very dangerous phenomenon, and it can easily develop into a chronic form. And here it’s not far from psychological and physiological problems.

In the article “” we wrote in detail about the harm that stress causes to the body, so here we will only briefly indicate that it:

• disrupts the functioning of vital systems of the body (cardiovascular, digestive, nervous and others);
• increases the risk of developing fatal dangerous diseases(heart disease, diabetes, blood pressure problems, brain degradation);
• the appearance of daily health problems (headaches, stomach upsets, sleep disorders, etc.);
• development of negative mental states (nervousness, anxiety, restlessness, irritability, aggressiveness).

Based on this, it is very important to prevent systematic and long-term exposure to stress, and if this is not possible, it is necessary to master special techniques for working with stress and apply recommendations to minimize its destructive influence.

As a matter of fact, systematicity and duration are the main signs of negative stress, which does not bring any benefit. It is enough to focus on these two indicators in order to distinguish “good” stress from “bad” and, if necessary, take appropriate measures in time.

Summary

In psychology (by the way, we recommend reading the article “”), there are two types of stress: short-term and long-term, each of which affects the human body in a certain way. It is the first type of stress that can be called favorable, because the second leads to dangerous consequences.

Short-term stress allows and is even necessary to mobilize all the body’s capabilities, activate intellectual potential, and increase physical strength. You've probably heard about people who, in extreme situations, climbed steep walls, lifted cars, jumped over chasms, and did other unusual things that they would not be able to do in normal circumstances. ordinary life, – this is precisely due to sudden stress.

But, of course, not each of us needs to temporarily become a superman or a genius, because for a harmonious life and successful activities it is enough to be in good health and mood, in a cheerful mood, and in good shape. Therefore, it is important to benefit from small shocks, realizing that this is how we become stronger, and for serious shocks, always have a secret weapon at the ready - stress resistance.

In fact, developing this quality in yourself is not so difficult - you just need to know how to do it. And you will learn about this from our articles “” and “”. If you want to become more adapted to the modern pace of life and learn how to respond competently to stress factors, be sure to read them.

We wish you as little stress as possible and the ability to overcome it!

My favorite topic is sharp and exciting, exhausting, invigorating, slimming, spreading like an epidemic, fashionable and explaining everything. Stress is the omnipresent ghost of megacities and the eminence grise of social games.

— Why do we need stress (after all, in nature nothing happens for nothing)

- How is stress beneficial?

— How do students and mothers of small children survive without sleep and rest during the session?

— What is the “Hans Selye triad”?

Let's first understand the many faces of the concept of “stress”.

We often confuse stress with a stressor - a result with a causative factor. Another modern trend is to focus more on a certain traumatic situation. But a stressor is ANY impact on the body, strength and intensity, which exceeds usual. And stress is what happens to the body as a result of a stressor or stressor.

I usually eat 1 croissant for breakfast, but yesterday I ate four. The stomach is swollen - stress for the body - how to digest it?

I always drive a car and hardly walk with my legs, but yesterday I started skiing and skied like crazy all day - today everything hurts - stress for the body: extreme physical activity.

Any infection or injury.

I moved from Salekhard to Sochi - my body is in shock - the climate is different, I need to readjust.

Information stress – preparing for a speech or exam. Pregnancy. Chronic stress - bad family relationships, unloved work. Acute stress is tragic news.

To understand why nature invented stress, we need to consider its stages and mechanisms using a specific example.

Let’s take for example a woman whose child has fallen ill.

The first stage of stress is Mobilization or Anxiety.

In response to stress, an alarm sounds in the body. Caution - danger! - Mom hears. Even if the child gets sick at night, she quickly wakes up, sleep in neither eye, the general tone sharply increases, the pressure rises, the blood vessels narrow, and so on. The woman begins to worry and think very quickly: which pharmacy is open at three in the morning and who to call to ask for advice.

Why is this so?

Stress is a universal defense mechanism aimed at only one thing - SURVIVAL. That is, when exposed to an extreme factor, certain reactions are activated that help us adapt to new conditions and save life.

My head of the biochemistry department liked to give the example of a man and a crocodile: a crocodile rushed at you (stress? What else), in order to survive, you need an action hormone - adrenaline, which activates the cardiovascular system and gives an impulse to action.

Or, for example, have you ever noticed that just before you get sick with an acute respiratory infection, you feel great? In the evening you mop the floors, try on outfits, have a ton of plans, your spirits are high, and in the morning you wake up all broken and with a runny nose. The virus entered the body the day before: the immune, endocrine and other systems mobilized, strained, accelerated, but there was not enough power, they could not cope - and now there is a cold.

Sometimes we managed. Well, here we won’t notice anything, the virus will die in the cradle, and the disease will pass by.

The second stage is Adaptation or resistance.

This is where the body works with triple strength, reserves are activated and reserves are spent. The mother adapts to the new sleepless regime, watches the baby, and her need for rest and food decreases. A sick baby (he is also stressed) has a rise in body temperature. Leukocytes fight to the death. Metabolic processes are accelerated and toxins are neutralized.

The same thing happens to students during the session: they don’t sleep, don’t eat, have a lot of coffee and cigarettes. At the same time, they remember large amounts of information.

BUT: if the stressor is too strong (the harmful microorganism turned out to be stronger than the immune system) or its effect is too long (one child recovered, but the second fell ill; she failed the exams and needs to be retaken, the audit at work has been going on for the second month), then the body’s reserves are gradually exhausted and the following occurs:

Third stage – Exhaustion

The body is exhausted. The student can no longer learn a single line and gives up.

Mom gets sick herself. Complications develop.

What's going on inside?

1. Increased mass in the adrenal glands (the place where stress hormones are produced, particularly cortisol and adrenaline)
2. The immune defense organs decrease in size, incl. thymus.
3. On the mucous membrane gastrointestinal tract Ulcers and erosions appear.

Let's decipher Selye's message:

1. Increased synthesis of the stress hormone - cortisol

The main effect of cortisol: - increasing the synthesis of glucose (a source of fast energy) from non-carbohydrate sources (amino acids). That is, where does the energy come from? It is taken from strategic reserves - from proteins (which are actually needed for the construction of tissues and organs).

The synthesis of adrenaline increases, which enhances catabolism (tissue breakdown), increases blood pressure, promotes the breakdown of fats - all for the same purpose - to produce energy. In addition, it constricts blood vessels, which leads to insufficient blood supply to tissues.

1. Immunodeficiency

The body's resistance to infections drops sharply. Perhaps you have noticed that you often get sick just before important events (weddings, competitions, performances at a matinee). The same stress.

1. Ulcers and gastritis.

As a result of deterioration of blood supply to the mucous membranes. It is understood that in times of danger there is no time to dig and there is no need to waste energy there.

Why do we need stress? It’s simple - as a result of the “shake-up,” we adapt to new environmental conditions, and the body’s resistance increases.

In addition, sleep has an anti-stress effect.

1. Provide for yourself good nutrition. Be sure to take enough protein (milk, dairy products, meat, fish, legumes, cauliflower, green pea and so on).
2. Avoid low-fat foods.
3. Take antioxidants (regular Aevit 1 tablet x 3 times a day or fish oil)
4. To protect against infections and help the immune system: take vitamin C (rose hips, berries, pine needles or ascorutin).
5. Use aromatic oils with an antiseptic effect (for example, tea tree or eucalyptus oil externally or 2 drops on a piece of bread daily). Eucalyptus enhances the function of the ciliated epithelium respiratory tract, which clears the airways. Tea tree oil is considered one of the most effective natural antibiotics. Use essential oils with a relaxing effect - for example, lavender - it is suitable for almost everyone, even small children.
6. To protect the stomach mucosa, eat mucous porridge and flax seeds. Chamomile tea. A decoction of coltsfoot and yarrow leaves.
7. To shift attention and energy, and remove toxins, daily 30-minute physical activity is required. The intensity should be enough to make you sweat.

Let's summarize:

Stress is a complex of defensive reactions that arise in response to any extreme impact.

Having successfully survived stress, we become stronger and more resilient.

By knowing the mechanisms of stress and applying simple rules before and during important events, as well as during difficult periods, we have the opportunity to minimize negative consequences and improve the quality of life.

Take care of yourself and don't be afraid of anything.

Diabetes. Diseases of cardio-vascular system. Depression. All this is usually associated with the consequences of stress. But while stress can make you sick, it can also be good for you. It is part of important cognitive and physiological functions that go beyond simply surviving a fight-or-flight situation.

But the question is how can we turn stress to our advantage? We need to keep it at a level that allows us to benefit from it without harming our health.

Why do we need stress?

Let's get one thing straight: stress is not only inevitable, but it is a necessary aspect of life. Stress, by definition, is caused by an unfavorable situation or condition. This is how your body lets you know that you need to find a way out and solve the problem.

Here's a classic example: you're crossing the road at a busy intersection and suddenly realize that a bus weighing seven tons is rushing straight towards you. You need to escape quickly. Right now.

In this situation, you experience what experts call an acute stress response. Your body is flooded with catecholamines and glucocorticoids, two molecular classes that include the well-known "fight and flight" hormones such as epinephrine (also known as adrenaline) and cortisone. These hormones have a strong and immediate effect on your physiological state: your breathing quickens, your heart beats wildly, supplying more oxygen to the organs of your body. Your pupils dilate, allowing you to see your surroundings better. You have enough energy to instantly move your muscles.

"At a basic level, stress aids adaptation and is necessary for survival." explains neuroimmunophysiologist Monica Fleshner in an interview. Animals that lack a stress response are at greater risk of getting hurt or dying when faced with dangerous or threatening situations. Situations that would cause them to change their behavior for the sake of self-preservation. Fleshner gives an example :

You might think this is good. Yes, I need stress in order to have time to jump out from under a train or overtake other tourists when a bear is chasing us. But such situations are rare - so how much stress is really necessary? You are right - the threats we face every day are usually far from a matter of life and death. But your body's stress response can benefit you for more than just when you need to jump in front of a speeding bus. In small doses, stress can be beneficial from a physiological and cognitive perspective.

Good stress and bad stress

Fleshner says that in small doses, the acute stress response "really triggers a great priming effect that strengthens your immune system. It allows you to respond to illness faster and more effectively." Moderate stress in a work environment can even promote a state of physiological and psychological uplift, helping you focus on completing a project before deadlines, for example improving your memory. It has been proven that patients who experienced moderate stress before surgery recovered much faster than those who experienced mild or severe stress. After all, stress is much more to your body than just an emergency response system.

The trick is to ensure that your body is able to regulate the effects of stress in order to benefit from it. When stress becomes excessive—whether due to intensity, duration, or all three—it begins to wreak havoc on your physical and mental health. Examples of this are post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and chronic stress. We'll talk about the latter because it's a form of stress that most of us deal with on a daily basis.

Chronic stress is the result of the stress you experience on a daily basis becoming so overwhelming that its effects on you are no longer beneficial and they begin to negatively affect your mind and body. Fleshner calls it " turning point"Using mice as an example, she says that if you systematically create stressful situations for them, you will observe a number of physiological changes:

In humans, when stress passes the “tipping point,” the risk of depression, diabetes, upper respiratory infections, autoimmune diseases, and even a decrease in your body’s ability to recover from damage increases. Published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from Carnegie Mellon University demonstrated that chronic stress impairs the body's ability to regulate cortisol levels (cortisol, you remember, is one of the hormones that is released into the body during stress). situations). This, in turn, has a direct impact on your body's ability to mount an immune response, making you more vulnerable to disease and infection.

How to avoid reaching the “tipping point”

The most difficult question is how to avoid crossing the line that separates good stress from bad. There are two ways to achieve this.

In the first case, you need to learn to cope with the stress that you are already experiencing. There are many ways to do this. One is to learn to recognize and avoid daily situations that cause tension, embarrassment and anxiety. The source of stress can be located in a person (friend, family member, co-worker), place (supermarket on a Friday night) and even time (rush hour).

Relaxation techniques such as meditation and deep breathing also relieve symptoms of chronic stress.

Even something as simple as telling yourself that stress can be an advantage can have beneficial physical and psychological effects. It may sound strange and far-fetched, but recent research has shown that people who are trained to believe that feeling stressed before an exam or performance can improve their performance not only outperform those who don't. They do demonstrate improvements in physiological parameters, including beneficial heart function and decreased vascular resistance.

Second and probably The best way, improve your ability to benefit from stress, is a set of exercises that you will have to do. It is best if it is regular exercise.

Fleschner explains:

The better your body copes with stress, the easier it is for you to function when you're in a stressful situation: jumping out of a car, trying to cope with a university load, or thinking about work deadlines. The main benefit of all this is that through exercise you are actually training your body to respond to stress in a timely and appropriate manner. Just look at this guy running. Does she seem depressed due to stress? Of course not.

"If you don't train your stress response, not only are you more likely to trigger it over something completely trivial, you'll have a much harder time dealing with it."

And remember: failure to manage your stress response leads to chronic stress in the first place. Train your body to regulate stress and you can use your body's natural responses to the challenges life brings to your full advantage.

Let's take a closer look at the processes occurring in the human body to understand the psychology of stress and find out why a person needs stress. The main human instinct, located in the hypothalamus, is responsible for survival. That is, if a person finds himself in a situation similar to the one that ended badly for him, or in a new, completely unfamiliar environment, the brain immediately builds a defense. During the occurrence of a traumatic situation, as a result of a person’s reaction to the situation, the body produces substances that help overcome it.

We previously looked at the physical aspect of a person's response to stressful circumstances. Why is stress needed from a physiological point of view? For physical development. I ran from a wild animal - I pumped up my leg muscles, I broke the tiger's neck - just like I trained in the gym. But in conditions modern society a purely physical reaction will not always be adequate. Just as relieving stress using purely physiological methods, such as running, jumping, etc., will not always be effective. What other benefits are there from stress? It turns out that stress is even more important for mental development than for physical development. It’s not for nothing that our brain consumes 20% of the body’s total energy, despite the fact that by weight it occupies only about 3 percent of the total mass.

Most often, when some unpleasant or unusual story happens to a person, what is required of him is not the stupid “run away or win”, but a sound assessment and adequate behavior. The substances the brain needs to solve a problem are always produced in excess, so it is quite reasonable to lose these excesses with physical activity. But you shouldn’t dwell on this, when emotions subside a little, you need to think about what can be done to ensure that such situations do not happen again and again and stress does not interfere with life.

Ask yourself questions: “Why did this situation happen to me? What thoughts or actions could I have provoked her? How can I solve this problem? What can I do to prevent this from happening again? Even if you don’t find all the answers right away, such exercises are very useful for the brain. By solving problems to overcome various psychotraumatic situations, a person develops mentally and intellectually. For some people, the reaction to stress is so different from the usual that they simply fall into a stupor, to the point of being unable to control not only their thoughts, but also their body. What could such a reaction indicate?

About the fact that very strong fears live in the human subconscious. They block the possibility of assessing the situation. The human brain is so afraid of something that it forbids itself to even think about it. Here, overcoming stress must begin by working on your fears. When you stub your finger, it hurts. For what? Then, so that you pay attention to it and begin to treat it. If something happened to you that makes your soul “ache,” this is a sign that not all is well in this area of ​​your psyche. For example, stress after a quarrel with your boss may indicate that you do not know how to properly build relationships in society, or do not have the right attitude towards your employer, or you have excessive demands on people, or... the reasons may be different (a finger can be bruised, pinched, burn, cut, freeze, pierce, etc.). You just need to find the reason and fix it.

Why does a person need stress? Unfortunately, most people view stress not as a guide to development, but as a nuisance that needs to be gotten rid of as quickly as possible. It is advisable to simply “remove” her from your life and click on the “Delete” button. Is it possible? With sufficient training, this is quite possible, but the trouble is that if a person is given the opportunity to change, and he refuses to use this opportunity, stressful situations begin to repeat. Until he starts thinking and acting. After all, science has proven that if any living creature is placed in ideal conditions, it begins to enjoy life to the fullest and stops developing, gradually begins to degrade, and ultimately dies. Not himself, but his descendants. So it makes sense to leave empty dreams of a life without stress, and learn to turn on your brain in stressful situations. He is perfectly suited for this.