Psychology of stress

Stress is a normal part of life and maybe not a completely bad one. For example without stress people will be less motivated to complete the activities they need to accomplish. However it is also known that too much stress can be harmful to people physical and psychological health. But first of all I would like to talk about that what is stress?

So, stress is a person's response to events that are threatening or challenging. It could be family problems, exams, relatives death and so on. Actually, even pleasant events can produce stress. For example planning a party or planning a wedding, even birth of a child. But it is known that negative events causes greater detrimental consequences than do positive ones. Also I should mention that stress is a very personal thing. What causes stress for one person may not be stressful to other at all. And the most important role, in the determination of what is stressful for person, plays interpretation of events.

There are three general types of stressors: cataclysmic events, personal stressors, and background stressors. And now more about all of these types.
Cataclysmic events are strong stressors that occur suddenly and typically affect many people at the same time. For example plane crashes or tornadoes.

Personal stressors include life events such as personal failure, the death of a parent or the loss of one's job.

Background stressors, or daily hassles, could be activity such as standing in a long line at a bank or a shop, getting stuck in traffic jam, even suddenly started rain when person don't have an umbrella could be found as background stressor.

We can identify stress by increase in heart rate and breathing, sweating hands etc. But how people deal with stress? There are several strategies how to cope with stress.
Emotion-focused coping. In emotion-focused coping, people try to change the way they feel about a problem, or how they perceive it. They try to look at the bright side of a situation. 
Another strategy - problem-focused coping. Problem-focused strategies lead to changes in behavior or to a development of a plan of action to deal with stress. 
One more, but least effective strategy - avoidant coping. As example of this strategy imagine situation when student avoid learning for the test and wishfully thinks "Maybe it will snow so hard tomorrow that the test will be canceled".


To sum up, I would like to say that there is no universal solution how to deal with everyday stress. But I think, when people learn to take responsibility for their own lives and adapt easily to life changes, they will experience less stress.

References:

Robert Feldman Course Book, 9th Edition, 2009 (module 43)

http://www.diy-stress-relief.com/images/stresssymptom1.jpg (looked at 2012.04.16)

http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lq6hnqgGkj1r1uog4o1_500.jpg (looked at 2012.04.16)

http://www.great-inspirational-quotes.com/images/i-will-smile-21615644.jpg (looked at 2012.04.16)