logo

Stress and Illness Assignment

   

Added on  2020-05-16

13 Pages3517 Words87 Views
Disease and DisordersNutrition and Wellness
 | 
 | 
 | 
Running head: STRESS AND ILLNESSSTRESS AND ILLNESSName of the student:Name of the university:Author note:
Stress and Illness Assignment_1

1STRESS AND ILLNESSContentsIntroduction:....................................................................................................................................2Physiology of stress response:.........................................................................................................2Four categories of symptoms of stress:...........................................................................................3Stress and heart disorders:...............................................................................................................4Stress and viral infection:................................................................................................................4Stress and depression:......................................................................................................................5Social support reduces stress:..........................................................................................................7Social factor that aggravates stress:.................................................................................................8Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................9References:....................................................................................................................................10
Stress and Illness Assignment_2

2STRESS AND ILLNESSIntroduction: Stress can be defined as the body’s way to respond to any kind of demand or threat.Whenever, a human being senses danger, the body’s defenses start to act in fast pace in a rapid aswell as an automatic process. This is called the flight or fight reaction or the stress response. Thestress response can be taken as the body’s way of protecting human beings. When the systemworks in a proper manner, it helps the individual to stay focused, energetic and alert. It has beenseen that in emergencies, stress help to save life giving additional strength to defend oneself.Stress also help individuals to meet challenges by keeping them on toes, sharpening theirconcentration on trying to achieve a goal, drives one to concentrate on objectives and manyothers. However, beyond a certain point, stress is seen to stop helping individuals to overcometension, causes major damage to health, mood, relationship, productivity, and hence affects thequality of life. Stress symptoms affect individuals in ways that are not easily recognizable.However, they can affect the body, the thoughts, the behaviors and the different feelings. Stressthat is left unchecked and unmanaged can contribute to a number of different health problems.These include high blood pressure, heart diseases, obesity, diabetes and many others. The presentassignment will mainly show how stress is responsible for the occurrence of different disordersdirectly and indirectly. It will also show how different social issues can help in aggravating ordecreasing stress levels and their effects on illness.Physiology of stress response:When an individual feel threatened, the nervous system of his body starts responding inspecific ways. They release a pool of stress hormones, which include adrenaline and cortisol.This prepares the human system for emergency action. In such situations, it is seen that the heartpounds faster with tightening of muscles, rising of blood pressure, quickening of breathing and at
Stress and Illness Assignment_3

3STRESS AND ILLNESSthe same time, senses become sharper (Lijffit, Hu & Swann, 2014). These types of physicalchanges cause an increase in the strength and stamina thereby speeding reaction time andenhancing the focus. This would help in preparing the individual for either flight or flee from thedanger at hand. Researches had found out that the system is not very good at distinguishingbetween emotional and physical threats. It cannot recognize whether a human being is stressedover intense arguments with colleagues or meeting deadlines and that when the person is facing atrue life or death situation. The more the emergency stress system is activated, the simpler itbecomes for the stress system to trigger but becomes harder to shut off. Therefore, researchershave suggested that being stressed out frequently exposes the individuals to a heightened state ofstress most of the time, which in turn lead to serious health programs. Chronic stress results indisrupting most of the physiological systems of the body. This may suppress the immune system,reproductive systems as well as the digestive systems. It can also result in increasing the risk ofheart attack as well as stroke (Hall et al., 2017). It is even seen that stress affects the agingprocedures, rewire the brain that thereby causes anxiety, depression and other mental healthproblems.Four categories of symptoms of stress:Four different types of symptoms remain associated with individuals who go throughchronic stress. The cognitive symptoms mainly involve different types of memory problems,poor judgment, anxious or racing thoughts, inability in concentrating, constant worrying andsimilar others. Physical symptoms that may be also depicted when describing individuals withchronic stress is, and rapid heart rate, aches and pains, chest pain diarrhea and constipation, lossof, nausea and dizziness, frequent colds or flu and sex drive (Leulier et al., 2017). Emotionalsymptoms mainly involve depression and general unhappiness, anxiety and agitation. It also
Stress and Illness Assignment_4

End of preview

Want to access all the pages? Upload your documents or become a member.

Related Documents
Relationship Between Workplace Stress and Illness
|13
|3599
|391

Causes and Effects of Stress - Analysis of Internal and External Factors
|7
|1430
|317

Physiological Symptoms of Panic Attacks and their Consequences
|2
|684
|324

Management of Ill Health
|6
|2052
|333

Stress Management Intervention Tool - Desklib
|13
|1805
|225

Physiological Disorders: Nature, Symptoms, Diagnosis, and Treatment
|11
|3959
|77