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Depression and Stress
"Teachers: Nikki neuron reminds you to check the standards tables in the front of thetoolkit to see which ones apply for this lesson and your subject area."Recent research has made it clear that stress is an important factor in illness and behavior in general, but it especially plays a critical role in depression. Therefore, we need tounderstand stress in order to understand depression.
What is Stress?
Stress can be defined as our physical and/or psychological responses to changes thatoccur around us that place abnormal demands on us. The late Dr. Hans Selye
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was themost prominent early researcher and theoretician on stress. Although many more recentresearchers have added considerably to the understanding of stress, Selye’s initial workproved to be foundational. He defined many of the terms used in current stress research.Some important concepts he developed include:
■ Stress — the response of a person to any demands that are sufficient to disturbhomeostasis; the stress response tries to keep one’s systems in homeostasis.■ Homeostasis — the state in which all systems in the body are functioningnormally and smoothly, and there is no net loss of energy or ability to cope.■ Stressor — any event that requires us to change or to adapt.■ Distress — more stress than we can effectively cope with.■ Eustress — effort without distress, having an effective capacity to cope.
Stress isn’t just determined by what happens to us; it also depends on how we perceivethe stress or how we react to it. A football game might be very stressful to one person,while enjoyable to another. The same could be true for a book report; one person mightfind it a stressful chore, another, an interesting learning experience. A person’s response tostress also depends somewhat on one’s basic personality. A person who is a worrier willexperience more stress than someone who is not. While a person may not be able tochange his or her basic personality, one can learn, through education or therapy, tomoderate or reduce the fight-flight response to stress by practicing stress managementskills.
The Fight-Flight Response to Stress
When we encounter changes in our environment or something perceived to be dangerous,frightening, or difficult, our bodies go through many changes to better enable us to adapt toor deal with the stressor. Things that frighten or anger us trigger the fight-flight response,which is an inherited, “built-in” tendency we all have acquired through natural selection tohelp us deal with emergencies. (More recent research in stress adds a third “f” to thefight/flight response: “freezing,” which sometimes is observed in organisms responding todanger, the opossum being one excellent example.
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)Dozens of things change in our bodies in times of danger (or perceived danger): We1
 
breathe faster to get more oxygen into our bodies to fuel our response to the stressor, our heart pumps faster to get the blood quickly to the large muscle groups we will need to usein order to fight or flee, adrenaline rushes into our bloodstream to give us greater energyand strength, our muscles tense up and prepare for strong physical activity, and our pupilsdilate to let in more light so that we can see better.Incoming sensory information is first appraised by the old primal systems of the brain (firstthe hindbrain, then the midbrain) to determine the threat potential. In other words, the “oldbrain” reacts in a “fight vs. flight” context, in terms such as, is this a “kill or be killed”situation, should I run away, what must I do for immediate survival? If danger is perceived,then primitive survival instincts are activated, directed by the lower regions of the brain. If no immediate threat exists, the information is evaluated according to more everydayadaptation (e.g. eat when hungry, drink when thirsty). Only if our brain perceives that thereis no immediate danger or survival issue do we have the luxury of allowing our higher braincenter, the forebrain and cerebral cortex, to take primary responsibility for processing theinformation.
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Being aware of the brain’s hierarchical mode for handling input from our environment helps us understand why we often don’t think clearly about the consequencesof our actions when we are highly emotional.
Is Stress Good or Bad?
When we all lived in caves and faced saber-toothed tigers, an instinct-driven brain madeperfect sense; we’d see a tiger, our bodies would kick into fight-flight mode, and we’d havelots of energy and strength to either run from or try to fight off the tiger. Now, in our morecivilized world, the fight-flight response doesn’t help us as much; our stressors tend to bethings like getting upset at our parents, spouse, boss or friends. It is not always productiveor socially appropriate to fight or run from these stressful situations. The unexpendedenergy is experienced in our bodies as tension.So, while the stress response is normally a good thing, it becomes a problem when it ischronic, severe or exceeds our natural capacity to cope. With chronic stress, a personstays in a state of hyper-vigilance and heightened arousal. Then stress becomes morethan just feeling a little emotionally upset. It can actually cause physical problems, evenchanges in the brain.
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Research has shown that high levels of stress can impair immunesystem function, making one more vulnerable to infection.
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In one well-known study,medical students taking an exam had their blood drawn before and afterwards to measurelevels of immune-response cells.
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The post-exam measures were significantly lower,apparently as a result of the stress of taking the exam. This may explain why wesometimes get sick after a period of high stress: Our body’s ability to fight off infection hasbeen compromised by the stress.On the other hand, too little stress can lead to complacency, a lack of being challenged, or a lack of alertness. You need a reasonable amount of stress to keep you alert andmotivated to use your abilities to meet challenges and solve problems. For instance, if youare about to fall asleep, you won’t do very well on a test. If you are excited about the biggame, but not too excited, you’ll be motivated to do well and are likely to perform better than if you were bored and uninterested. However, if you get too excited, the level of your body’s arousal turns into anxiety that can actually interfere with your performance.The relationship between stress and performance
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can be plotted on a graph, with astress level rating from low to high on the horizontal axis and performance measures fromlow to high on the vertical axis. The points on the graph, when connected, will form aninverted U-shaped curve (called a Yerkes response curve
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). This curve shows how people2
 
typically perform under varying amounts of stress: If stress is low, performance improveswith an increase in stress. But at very high levels of stress, the effect is reversed, resultingin declining performance. The ideal amount of stress for optimal performance issomewhere in the middle range.So is stress good or bad? It can be either. Stress helps us accomplish the basic tasks of everyday living, like waking up to alarm clocks and working for our paychecks. The stressresponse is what helps us to slam on the brakes in time to stop short of the car ahead thathas suddenly come to a halt. Even the happy things in our lives can be stressful if they aremajor events with a strong emotional impact. Your first date, going to the senior prom, abig party, getting married, having a child, getting a job promotion, even going on a bigvacation – all are things we look forward to experiencing, but because of their importance,carry the potential for stress. Too much stress, for whatever reason, makes it harder tocope well.
The Caveman and the Lion
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Imagine a caveman out foraging for food in the savanna, and around the next tree hecomes face to face with a lion. What does the caveman’s body need to do to survive? Runaway fast. His muscles need all the energy they can muster, energy produced by burningglucose. Therefore, the stress response consists of producing glucose out of fat cells, liver cells, etc. for use by the muscles. Cortisol, a hormone from the adrenal gland,accomplishes this. To deliver all the necessary glucose to the muscles, the heart rate andblood pressure need to rise (this is accomplished by adrenaline and noradrenaline), andthe need for oxygen increases so respiration also increases. Along with these responses,there are changes in his brain. Because the reticular activating system (RAS) of the brainis pounding away, and blood flow to the brain is boosted, especially to the frontal lobes,the senses become sharper and memory improves. The survival value of these changes tothe brain is that they enable one to remember that man cannot outrun a lion; therefore, heneeds an escape plan.There are also a number of energy-consuming processes that the caveman will need toshut down in order to optimize energy use to meet the demands of this emergency:digestion, tissue repair, reproduction, sex drive and fighting infections. Therefore, duringthe stress response, his body stops tissue repair, curtails the production of hormonesrelated to sperm (or egg) production, and the immune system is suppressed. The painthreshold is increased, so that if the caveman is clawed by the lion, he can still try toescape.The manifestation of the stress response is normally short lasting and occasional. It is notintended for repeated, long-lasting responses to the environment. If chronic, the stressresponse can debilitate and even kill just as surely as a lion can, but more slowly. If thestress response is elicited repetitively for prolonged periods, the increases in bloodpressure can lead to heart disease, including heart attacks and strokes. The skin does notrepair the wear and tear of everyday aging; a simple paper cut can take days to heal or may scar. Poor use of glucose can lead to a form of diabetes; egg production or spermcount drops; libido (sex drive) decreases; and the body’s ability to fight infections, includingcancer, is reduced.One recent animal study points out the difference between acute and chronic stress. Whenone is first exposed to stress, learning is improved. But after periods of chronic stress, thedendrites in the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in learning and memory, beginto shrink. This leads to diminished cognitive performance.
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