Stress is the body's reaction to difficult and challenging positions and circumstances. Helye Selye once said, "It is not stress that kills us; it is our reaction to it." This means when stressed, the body produces certain chemicals for a "fight-or-flight" response.I agree with Selye. This is because stress can effect our bodies in so many ways. Its not the stress that harms us but it is the strain that stress puts on the body. If a person is stressed frequently and over a long period of time, this can be harmful to the person. Richard Lazarus believes, how a person perceives and evaluates an event makes a difference in the level of stress this person feels. Lazarus took the cognitive approach of how people evaluate stress. The cognitive model of stress states that people will analyze and evaluate a situation before it is labeled as stressful. When a person must choose between two or more options that tend to result in opposing motives. This leads to appraising the situation. There is two types of this, primary and secondary. Primary is our immediate evaluation of the stress of the situation. This evaluation could be either the stressor is positive, negative, or irrelevant. Secondary involved deciding how to deal with a potentially stressful situation, such as deciding on a coping strategy. .
There is many types of stressors. Environmental is one example. Environmental stress could be noise or overcrowding. Life changes, such as marriage, serious illness, new job, moving, or death in the family. It can even be day to day common hassles. Everyone reacts to stress. Some coping mechanisms have been around forever such as crying. Stress will be dealt with when it is caused by different things. These factors are physical, psychological, and behavioral. Everything in the human body works together due to the holistic nature of the body. Our physical well-being affects how we think and act.
