What is Stress?

Almost everyone talks about stress. However, until we have clarity in understanding certain nuances about stress, we will be fighting an enemy about whom we know very little.

Stress is also known as adjustive demands mainly because it indicates how we respond or react to the situations within or around us.

Stress is mistakenly referred to as being negative, which is itself a misunderstanding of the concept. We have discussed that in “Is stress necessary for survival” as to why it is not an enemy?

Stress is not only negative but also positive or neutral. We shall consider more about this later.

Even if someone is not doing anything, there are still demands from the environment that need to be fulfilled. For instance, almost all our internal organs keep functioning to keep us alive. Whether we are tensed, relaxed, or happy the heart cannot miss a beat, our breathing cannot stop, the body’s temperature should be balanced, and our need for food, water, clothing, shelter, etc., continue.

Thus, stress is part of the motivational process to maintain equilibrium or balance in our physical, psychological, and social environment.

WHAT ARE ITS TYPES?

Sometimes, stress is classified into three types: Acute, Episodic Acute, and Chronic Stress (See Psychology Today). This classification is according to the American Psychological Association, as the above article indicates. This is inappropriate because almost every disease or disorder has acute and chronic stages. These terms refer to the degree and duration of stress, rather than the types of stress.

A categorization of types is necessitated to distinguish between how one type manifests as against the other. Another most important requirement is that the types identified must be mutually exclusive. It means that one is significantly distinct from the other and one type should not have any characteristics that overlap with another type.

This does not happen when we classify stress as acute or chronic. All symptoms like anxiety, anger, depression, etc. are present in both types of stress.

And as it is believed, we don’t get used to chronic stress. It is like saying that a patient with chronic kidney disease is well-adjusted to the problem. Do we get used to suicides, addictions, homicides, economic crises, enmity, war, etc.?

Let us first understand the different types of Stress – Eustress, Distress, and Neustress.

Eustress (Selye, 1982) is positive stress that leads to pleasant emotions like joy, contentment, pleasure. The opposite of this is Distress (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), which is negative stress that leads to unpleasant emotions like anger, fear, sadness, jealousy, irritability.

Neustress (Morse & Furst, 1979) is falsely depicted as it is neither eustress nor distress. However, neustress has both eustress and distress. More details on how it is a balance between the two extremes of stress are clearly explained in WHAT IS NEUSTRESS?

The word ‘stress’ should represent Neustress. However, it is usually associated with Distress. We shall know more about distress in other articles: WHAT IS DISTRESS and Types of Distress and how to Overcome Them?

Once in a while, we go through instances in our life where we are happy. This is the state called Eustress. A complete overview of eustress is provided in WHAT IS EUSTRESS?

STRESS & AROUSAL

Neustress differs from the other types of stress in that the duration of the experience of the stress level is considerably greater. If you consider 24 hours, then more than 20 hours will be spent by the individual in neustress.

However, the degree of arousal in terms of excitement is highest in both eustress and distress. The level of arousal comes to normal during neustress. The diagram above shows how the arousal level increases when there is a shift from neustress.

Arousal

Arousal refers to a level of activity that is measurable both physiologically and psychologically. The continuum of Arousal varies from excitement, followed by activity, wakefulness, drowsiness, and sleep.

CONTINUUM OF AROUSAL

An organism mediates through the Reticular Formation in the brainstem to regulate the level of arousal needed by it. During Excitement, all neural activities are geared up to meet the contingencies. It could be winning a lottery or finding an armed robber at home.

Both cortical arousal and sub-cortical arousal are heightened at this level whereas, during sleep, the neural activity is reduced considerably. Depending upon the need of the hour, we oscillate between these two extremes.

(Please note that the neural activity increases during dreams though the individual is sleeping. This aspect is not relevant here and is considered in the book, “Sleep Saves Life and Restores Wellbeing”).

The cortical arousal is measurable through changes in brain waves (electroencephalogram – EEG) and the sub-cortical arousal is measurable through changes in blood pressure (sphygmomanometer).

Arousal & Stress

When the types of stress are compared with this continuum, we see that both Eustress and Distress are displayed between Excitement and Activity. We can sleep only when we are relaxed and not when we are excited or active. The wakefulness, drowsiness, and sleep are characterized by Neustress.

Individuals can’t be happy throughout the 24 hours, nor can they be sad all the time. They revert to neustress after a few minutes of experiencing positive or negative emotions.

In case they are unable to do so, we label them as having a disorder. This is what happens in bipolar disorders where the affected individual spends more time in either elation or depression. In other words, people with disorders remain excited most of the time in a day.

Arousal, Stress, & Emotions

We can recognize these variations in arousal and stress through the experience of emotions.

When we experience joy or happiness, we are excited in the same way as when we experience anger or fear. The level of arousal is slightly lower than this when we experience contentment or sadness. During neustress, we are either calm and relaxed, or bored and tired.

More about this in How are Emotions Connected to Stress?

Thus, neustress refers to a normal state whereas the ups and downs are attributed to eustress and distress. So, instead of bringing down the stress level, we have to make sure that our neustress is not unduly affected by either eustress or distress and we can maintain the balance between the two extremes.

MANAGE STRESS

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