Stress is a factor which can either be physical, mental or emotional that causes bodily or mental tension. Negative events are strongly associated with poor physical and mental health. Negative events on people’s lives are referred to as “life events” or “stressful events”. The more negative events that and individual experiences over a long period of time, the more likely they are to develop an illness, injury, disability or death. A build-up of stressors is also found to elevate levels of psychological distress which can be a prediction of the beginning or recurrence of psychiatric disorders like major depression.
The relationship between this negative events and outcomes is only weak in modest to strength. Experiencing many life events doesn’t necessarily mean one is at a higher risk to get a disorder or illness than an individual with less life events. There are factors that reduce the impact of stressful events on health that include high self-esteem and emotional support. (Holmes and Richard Rahe, 1967) created the social readjustment scale that measures stressors and found out that major changes in patients’ lives lead to doctors visit and hospitalization since this major life events require individuals to make extensive behavioural adjustments in their social life. Too many changes in a short period of time hinders a person’s ability to adapt and cope making them more vulnerable to health issues. Life event that requires the most behavioural readjustment is death of a spouse while violations to low have fewest life changing units (Holmes and Richard Rahe, 1967).
Main findings on stress as a psychological condition
With more comprehensive stress measurements, the impact of stressors on health are substantial. Recurring problems and demands that require individuals to readjust their behaviours over a long period of time and Traumas are a category of stressors since they represent an extreme threat to a person’s physical and psychological being. (Turner 2003; Turner and Avison 2003; Turner and Lloyd 1999; Turner et al. 1995; Wheaton 1999) showed that, first, influences of chronic strains on mental health was more severe than those from life events. second, childhood and adult traumas increased a person’s experience of subsequent stress events and Third, events, strains and traumas together explain a far more variance in mental health together than negative events alone.
Exposer to stressors vary inversely with social status. Females, young adults, members of racial-ethnic minority groups, divorced or widowed persons and poor individuals had significantly more chronic difficulties in their lives and face more cumulative burdens overall. Members of minority group are additionally burdened by discrimination stress which damages physical and mental health as they are significantly associated with illnesses like high blood pressure, psychological distress, anxiety and depression disorders.
Stressors proliferate over the life course and across all generations sustaining the health gap between advantaged and disadvantaged social groups. For example, childhood strains generate stressful experiences even in adolescent’s stage and more stress in young adult and adult stage. Stress proliferation is a key mechanism through which early and later life structural disadvantages yield increasingly adverse health outcomes as people move through life course.
The impact of stressors on health being are greatly reduced when persons possess high levels of mastery, self-esteem and social support. These encourage problem solving, emotional support and diminishes stress induced psychological distress and arousals. Persons with lower levels of this coping mechanisms like those from low economic status therefore are at a higher risk of developing mental disorders and ill-health.
Suggestions for further investigations
First, more research is needed to trace the effects of neighbourhood disadvantage to resident’s personal experiences of chronic strains, social isolation and lack of control. More research is needed to verify the influences of neighbourhood experiences on the overall physical and mental health of community residents.
Secondly, cumulative measures of health outcomes should be employed in order to enhance predictive power of stress theory and its findings. Since stress theory is nonspecific in the outcomes it is extended to explain.it is important to access the variety of health outcomes to better capture the general effects of adversities on health. Researchers should analyse these outcomes interchangeable rather than separately to gain a more explanatory power by applying the same measurement strategy to health outcomes.
Third, the ways and degree to which individuals stressing experiences and coping resources play a role in multiplying the process over their life course should be further elaborated and verified. Complimentary studies would go a long way in validating the crucial role of stressors in magnifying the social status inequalities in both mental and physical health over the long run.
What I think of the article
The article is very informative and articulate, it goes a long way in helping someone understand what stress is, its main causes, effects and how one can use several factors to help minimize this effects of stress. The article also connects stress to psychological and psychiatric disorders which is a clear indication that stress is a main topic in the study of psychology. The article also shows the mainstreams that have been achieved through researches on stress so it can be of great use to other researchers who want to tap to the areas that haven’t been tapped into yet, I think the article is futuristic. The article is also very easy to understand, many examples are given to help one understand a given statement.it can be of great value to individuals going through various life events since they can be able to fully understand their condition and learn ways of reducing their stress to avoid the mental and psychical disorders associated with stress.
Conclusion
How does the stress link to the study of psychology? Psychology involves study of the mind and its functions that affect behaviour. Stress brings with it mental disorders that lead to behavioural readjustments over the course of individuals lives. over the past decades and presently, many researches have been conducted examining the physical and mental health consequences associated with traumas, negative events and chronic strains. Burdens that are coupled with stress account largely for gender, race, ethic, race, marital status and social-economic status differences in both physical and mental well-being. Origin of damaged mental health is tied to an individual’s position in the stratification system.
Psychological reaction to noxious events come in three stages. The alarm, resistance and exhaustion stages. The exhaustion stage leads to depletion of bodily defences against stress leading to high risks of blood pressure, heart diseases and diseases of adaptation all this which are usually as a result of psychological reaction to stressors. Stressful experiences clearly impact the psychological condition of an individual and therefore stress is a big factor in the study of psychology.
References
Journal of Health and Social Behavior 51(S) S41 –S53 © American Sociological Association 2010
