STRESS

Stress is a part of human life. Every day we are going under the stresses. Stress help us to cope with every day challenges also gives new clues to solve the problem. But stress bring physical and psychological problems when it became increases over and continuous basis. Stress will be occurred when a person become perceives a continuous threat and unable to cope with the stressor.

          Stresses are beginning from birth. Like, a chilled in his early period of life try to crawling, which is a new and difficult task to him. But how does he able to cope with it? By practicing continuously. Continuous practicing makes him perfect to do it and enable him to solve the problem. The next tasks are walking, speaking, reading, writing etc. They also become skilled in this work by continuous trying as well as by their family support.

          A large number of specific stimuli are produces stress response. In psychological term it is called 'stressor.' Some examples of stressor are; Examination is a stressor for a student, finding a job is a stressor for an unemployed youth, loss of person or family separation is a stressor for a family, to get admission in a school or college is a stressor, changing location or find out a new home is a stressor, sudden outbreak of a pandemic disease is a stressor etc. Stress brings physical illness even death when it is persistent and increasing over the threshold level.

          Suppose Karim has just passed from college with high grade. His future aim of life is to be a doctor. So, he tried his best to do well in his previous school examinations and try to doing well in his upcoming test exams. To get admission in a medical college every student must be able to passed in objective test with high rank. He knows that if his score is not to a certain level, he cannot able to admitted in medical college although he has high grade in school and college exams. But problem is that he is not a good objective test taker.

The night before the exam, he was preoccupied with the thoughts about test; he become tried his best to remember his notes but unable to concentrated, thus also made him troubles to sleep that night. The next morning before exam he feels nausea and cannot able to eat. He also feels panicked and anxious.

          Just entering the exam room, he feels shortness of breath, heart throbbing, hands and feet are cold. All the students began to start their exams but Karim cannot concentrate to the subject, his hands are trembling, he only writes a few sentences after then the exam time is over. Few days after the exam result is published. He failed in exam. These conditions of Karim are characterized as stress reactions.

          Stress reaction is composed of three components,

·       Emotional disruption.

·       Disrupted cognitive function.

·       Disrupted pattern of physiological activity.

*** Emotional disruption: People are feels anxiety, depression, grief, sorrow, angry, guilty, irritability during stressful condition, this is characterized as emotional disruption. The most common pattern of emotional disruption are anxiety and depression. People feels tense, fear, restless, nervous, trembling of hands and feet, sudden scared without any reason during anxiety. Depressed person feels fatigue, worthless, loneliness, blaming himself, uninterested to do every day work, even decided to kill himself. In Karim’s example he was feels anxiety and panicky due to preoccupied thought of exam which brings this emotional disruption. In order to cope with emotional disruption, one should recognize his feelings and identify their underlying sources to bring a positive outcome.

*** Disrupted cognitive function: It is psychological disruption related with thinking, memory, concentration. Let’s come to Karim’s example. Due to preoccupied thought about negative side of examination he become unable to concentrated his mind at night and in exam hall which hampered his thinking capacity also make him confused and forgetful. As like as when a person goes under a critical situation, he become unable to make a correct decision even though the solution is close to him.   

*** Disrupted pattern of physiological activity: The third component of stress reaction is physiological disruption which hampered the normal physiological activity. Like, Karim feels nausea, tremor, shortness of breath, heart throbbing, coldness of hands and feet. This condition was first described by famous physiologist Walter B. Cannon in his “fight or flight” observation.

          Brain co-ordinates every event of human organism & communicate via nervous system. Brain controls the tension of skeletal muscles via somatic nervous system and controls internal organs via autonomic nervous system. But during stress brain activates both system as a part of preparation for “fight or flight”. Brain also communicates with body by endocrine system. The master gland of endocrine system is Pituitary gland. It releases ACTH hormone which acts over adrenal gland. Adrenal gland secrets several varieties of hormones. Among them; Adrenaline accelerates the heart activity that increases blood flow to the muscles, liberate sugar from liver. Noradrenaline constricts the blood vessels in the skin so, more blood can be reached to the muscles. Brain control the release of these two hormones by means of autonomic nervous system.

          Now, a question arises, that why a group of persons feel stress on the other hand others are not?

The answer of this question is that, the second group of people are able to cope with their stressful events by identifying the problem, gaining knowledge, by reducing time pressure and continuous monitoring.

          In first example, Karim was do well in medical objective test if he become aware to his problem. Then he works his best to gaining knowledge and continuous revised his text that reduce his time pressure. This will bring a positive outcome. Reduce time pressure means reduce work overload. Like, if a student cannot read his textbook throughout the year, he must be faced trouble fortnight of the test that also increase his time pressure. Another thing, he might be taking exam simply as it is a practice, not to think a lot about it. He also chooses other option beside medical profession, e.g. engineering, ICT, mathematics, physics, chemistry, business study etc.

To be continued…

 

___Amatul Zami Aditi

Student (final year B.H.M.S.)

Govt. Homoeopathic Medical College, Dhaka, Bangladesh.