The Health Impacts of Stress
Not everyone is affected similarly by the same stressor. Stress is both Stressor and Stress Reaction. I hear a lot of times in the clinic how an individual was doing fine until another person or an unfortunate circumstance contributed to their increased stress, anger, and pain. We cannot live a stress-free life. When we speak of stress, it is beneficial to consider two sides of it: the stressor – that which exerts stress – and the stress reaction – our response to the stressor. We may not be able to control what the outside may bring to us, but we can control our attitude and the response we generate. Required in this is the ability to regulate our nervous system to generate calm and reframe a stressor.
Negative and unprocessed stress can be harmful to our health. Unequivocally, it can impact our bodies. How we cope with it can be a second hit to our health and attract us to potentially harmful and addictive behaviors.
In the article, Hanna Keith Santos Barrios defines stress and specifically how our body responds to it. The hope is that the knowledge can equip the reader with a tool to consider the ways in which attach to a stressor and they can reframe it to provide the energy for transcending any obstacle.
