Running head: IMPACT OF STRESS ON HEALTH 1

IMPACT OF STRESS ON HEALTH

BY: M .HUZAIFA ALI
IQRA UNIVERSITY
Submitted to: SIR MUHAMMAD YASIR KHAN
THE IMPACT OF STRESS ON HEALTH 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

S. No Contents Page No
1 Abstract---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3
2 Background----------------------------------------------------------------------- 3
3 Introduction to stress and its form -------------------------------------------- 4
4 Research Question--------------------------------------------------------------- 5
5 Purpose of Study----------------------------------------------------------------- 5
6 Literature Review---------------------------------------------------------------- 5
7 Discussion------------------------------------------------------------------------ 7
-
8 Conclusion------------------------------------------------------------------------ 8
9 References------------------------------------------------------------------------ 9
THE IMPACT OF STRESS ON HEALTH 3

Abstract
Stress is a fact of life and can affect individuals in a variety of ways. Any intrinsic or extrinsic
stimulus that causes a biological response is known as stress. The compensatory responses to
these stresses are known as stress responses. Based on the type, timing and severity of the
applied stimulus, stress can exert various actions on the body ranging from fluctuations in
homeostasis to life-threatening effects and severity like death. In many cases, the complications
of disease arise from stress and the subjects exposed to stress, e.g. those that work or live in
stressful environments, have a higher likelihood of many disorders. Stress can be either a
triggering or aggravating factor for many diseases and pathological conditions. In this study, we
have reviewed some of the major effects of stress on the primary physiological systems of
humans.

Background
Although many individuals manage stress relatively well, some individuals experience physical
and/or psychological symptoms. Studies have shown, however, that individuals who experience
excessive amounts of stress may increase the risk of developing various medical conditions.
Examples of physical symptoms related to stress include fatigue, headache, gastrointestinal (GI)
upset, muscle tension, episodes of dizziness, weight loss or gain, back pain, and teeth grinding.
In many individuals, hyperhidrosis has also been observed which is correlated to stress and
partly due to neurological reasons. At some point in life, every individual experiences some
degree of stress; some experience stress more often than others and some have difficulty dealing
with it.
THE IMPACT OF STRESS ON HEALTH 4

1.1 Introduction:
Claude Bernard (1865/1961) noted that the maintenance of life is critically dependent on keeping
our internal environment constant in the face of a changing environment. Cannon (1929) called
this phenomenon as “homeostasis.” It can be simply defined as the body’s self ability to maintain
normal internal conditions while adjusting to external factors. Selye (1956) used the term
“stress” to represent the effects of anything that seriously threatens homeostasis. The actual or
perceived threat to an organism is referred to as the “stressor” and the response to the stressor is
called the “stress response.” Although stress responses evolved as adaptive processes, Selye
observed that severe and prolonged stress responses might lead to tissue damage and disease.
 Meaney et al.(1993) conducted an experiment on rats raised by nurturing mothers vs rats raised
by less nurturing mothers. It was shown that rats raised by nurturing mothers had high rate of
serotonin activity compared with rats raised by less nurturing mothers. This in turn leads to
improved glucocorticoid feedback into the CNS throughout the rat’s life. Female rats who
receive a nurturing environment in turn become equally nurturing mothers whose offspring also
contain high levels of glucocorticoid receptors. This experiment shows how nurtured rats
develop into low anxiety adults, who in turn themselves become nurturing mothers with reduced
stress responses.

1.2 Forms of Stress:

According to the American Psychological Association (APA), stress can be categorized as acute,
episodic acute, and chronic.

1.2.1 Acute Stress: Acute stress is the most common form of stress and is short term. It is
described as a reaction to an immediate threat commonly referred to as the fight or flight
response. Common causes of acute stress include noise, danger, crowding, or isolation.

1.2.2 Episodic Acute Stress: Episodic acute stress is prevalent among those individuals whose
lives are constantly chaotic and demanding. These individuals are always in a rush and tend to
take on too many tasks at one time. Individuals who worry a lot are also prone to episodic acute
stress.

1.2.3 Chronic Stress: Chronic stress is defined as a type of stress that occurs over a long period
of time from either internal or external stressors. Common causes of chronic stress include
financial problems, death of a loved one, long-term relationship issues or having a demanding
job or work schedule.
THE IMPACT OF STRESS ON HEALTH 5

2.0 Research Questions:

Tentative idea of this research article is as follows:

 Stress can have short- and long-term consequences for our health.

 In certain situations, it can be useful to improve performance – or help us deal with life-
threatening situations.

 But, to avoid it becoming chronic, and negatively impacting our health, it's important to
effectively identify and manage stress.

3.0 Objectives and Purpose of The Study:

The purpose of this research article is to recognize the key aspects and the factors which induce
stress among individuals and animals (mammals) and to debunk some misinformation about
stress. Stress has always been portrayed as a bad thing but sometimes stress can be very helpful
in the sense of making important deadlines, adopting fight/flight response at appropriate times,
doing something very quick for the defense when it comes to threatening conditions. Following
are the key agendas of this study:
 To acknowledge that stress is a feeling of emotional and physical tension which happens
to both humans and animals.
 Stress has direct effects on health. Short term stress is normally harmless but long term
stress causes serious health problems and influences the hormonal activities.

4.0 Literature Review:

There is sufficient amount of literature available which discusses the causes of stress among
students. Stress is unarguably a natural phenomenon for students who aspire or persue
professional careers like medical, law, engineering etc. In comparision to students who pursue
arts, sociology they are more stress stricken as studies has showed. Among non-academic
THE IMPACT OF STRESS ON HEALTH 6

reasons of stress, home-sickness, limited time for recreation (Abraham et al 2009), verbal/
physical abuse, task given by seniors, conflicts among peers, love affairs related problems, and
health issues are some of the contributing factors. Skead and Rogers (2014) study examined that
people who spend time with family, friends, and partners and who exercise tend to experience
lowest levels of stress. Their study also highlighted that those who are engaged more in online
leisure activities experience more stress. Level of satisfaction has a direct impact on their
academic performance. They found that low level of anxiety/depression is linked with high
levels of satisfaction and performance.
Research has proven that stress is not just related to students in their crucial point of life. Stress
affects anyone and everyone. People who are suffering in finding job and those who are working
very hard that ultimately causes their health to deteriorate are very much prone to stress.
Moreover, according to an experimental study on animals that whether stress affects them or not,
it was proved that animals raised by nurturing and caring mothers were less prone to stress and
that their hormonal activity was also positively influenced. On the other hand, animals raised by
less nurturing mothers had decreased normal hormonal hormonal activity and also had affected
stress in their coming generations.
There is a substantial amount of research dealing with stress outcomes such as problems of
parental attachment (McCarthy, Moller, & Fouladi, 2001), social appraisal (Lee, Keough, &
Sexton, 2002), health-related issues (Hudd, Dumlao, & Erdmann-Sager, 2000), feelings of
loneliness, nervousness, sleeplessness and excessive worrying and when peer relationships issues
occur, distress levels can be significantly heightened (Jackson & Finney, 2002).

4.1 Effects of Stress:

Our bodies are well equipped to handle stress in small doses, but when that stress becomes long-
term or chronic, it can have serious effects on your body. Stress has been linked to or can
exacerbate various medical conditions, such as asthma, fatigue, back pain, difficulty breathing,
headaches, hypertension, irritable bowel syndrome, ulcers, suppression of the immune system,
and fluct-uations in blood glucose levels in diabetic patients. Both emotional and physical stress
can have a significant negative impact on the heart and vascular system.

4.1.1 Musculoskeletal system:

With sudden onset stress, the muscles tense up all at once, and then release their tension when
the stress passes. Chronic stress causes the muscles in the body to be in a more or less constant
state of guardedness. When muscles tense for long periods of time, this may trigger other
reactions of the body and even promote stress-related disorders.
For example, both tension-type headache and migraine headache are associated with chronic
muscle tension in the area of the shoulders, neck and head. Musculoskeletal pain in the low back
and upper extremities has also been linked to stress, especially job stress.

4.1.2 Respiratory system:

For people without respiratory disease, this is generally not a problem as the body can manage
the additional work to breathe comfortably, but psychological stressors can exacerbate breathing
THE IMPACT OF STRESS ON HEALTH 7

problems for people with pre-existing respiratory diseases such as asthma and chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease.

Some studies show that an acute stress—such as the death of a loved one—can actually trigger
asthma attacks. In addition, the rapid breathing—or hyperventilation—caused by stress can bring
on a panic attack in someone prone to panic attacks.

4.1.3 Cardiovascular system:

Acute stress—stress that is momentary or short-term such as meeting deadlines, being stuck in
traffic or suddenly slamming on the brakes to avoid an accident—causes an increase in heart rate
and stronger contractions of the heart muscle, with the stress hormones—adrenaline,
noradrenaline, and cortisol—acting as messengers for these effects.
Chronic stress, or a constant stress experienced over a prolonged period of time, can contribute
to long-term problems for heart and blood vessels. This long-term ongoing stress can increase
the risk for hypertension, heart attack, or stroke.
The risk for heart disease associated with stress appears to differ for women, depending on
whether the woman is premenopausal or postmenopausal. Levels of estrogen in premenopausal
women appears to help blood vessels respond better during stress, thereby helping their bodies to
better handle stress and protecting them against heart disease. Postmenopausal women lose this
level of protection due to loss of estrogen, therefore putting them at greater risk for the effects of
stress on heart disease.

Discussion:
Although early and adulthood life stress are known to be strongly associated with a broad range
of mental and physical health problems (Cohen et al., 2007; Conway et al., 2014; Slavich and
Irwin, 2014; Taylor, 2010), few studies have actually measured the severity of lifetime exposure
to stress and examined its effects on health. Moreover, the coping styles that might moderate
such effects remain unclear.
It has been proved through various experimentations that individuals with high stress level has
this potential of progressing it throughout generations. A person with stress free environment is
more likely to have better physiological and hormonal functions than a person who struggles
with different stressors and hence reflect the same in his heath too. Nonetheless, stress is a
normal biological feeling which has short term and long term effects. Stress is also not always
should be depicted as a disturbance to homeostasis as sometimes it is very beneficial when it
comes to making deadlines and taking appropriate actions at threatening times. Studies have
shown that when an individual/animal is subjected to threatening situations, they adopt the fight
or flight response because of incoming stress.
THE IMPACT OF STRESS ON HEALTH 8

Sources of Stress:
Numerous studies show job stress is considered to be the greatest source of stress among adults
in the United States and that levels of stress have increased significantly over the past few
decades.11

In a report published in the November 24, 2009, online edition of the Journal of Epidemiology
and Community Health, a study concluded that men who consistently failed to deal with work-
related stress issues were twice as likely to have a myocardial infarction or die of cardiovascular
disease than those who managed stress in a constructive way.

In general, workplace factors that may contribute to or exacerbate levels of stress include2:

• Job demands (work overload)

• Financial and economic factors

• Conflict between work and family roles and responsibilities

• Lack of opportunity for growth or promotion

Conclusion:
While stress is almost inevitable, how an individual reacts to and manages stress is important to
one’s overall wellbeing and health. While sometimes it is easier said than done, it is important
for individuals to learn how to effectively manage stress in healthy ways. Individuals with
chronic stress should be encouraged to seek help, which may include counseling, finding ways to
relax, and discuss the possibility of medications with their physician. Stress is a central concept
for understanding both life and evolution. All creatures face threats to homeostasis, which must
be met with adaptive responses. Our future as individuals and as a species depends on our ability
to adapt to potent stressors. Indeed, individuals who are optimistic and have good coping
responses may benefit from such experiences and do well dealing with chronic stressors
(Garmezy 1991, Glanz & Johnson 1999). In contrast, if stressors are too strong and too persistent
in individuals who are biologically vulnerable because of age, genetic, or constitutional factors,
stressors may lead to disease. We have also described how psychosocial stressors influence
mental health and how psychosocial treatments may ameliorate both mental and physical
disorders. There is so much more in the relationship between stress and health which can be
THE IMPACT OF STRESS ON HEALTH 9

recognized with the help of neurosciences, molecular biology and psychology ultimately leading
to improved health outcomes.

References
Zanchetti, A ., & Mancia, G. (1968).Cardiovascular changes during naturally
elicited fighting behavior in the cat. 
Selye, H . (1956).The Stress of Life.
Schnall, PL., & Landsbergis, PA., & Baker, D., (1994) Job strain and cardiovascular
disease.
.