Stress And Cardiovascular Disease (part I)

KY: How does our body respond to stress?

Recently stress (psychological stress) has been talked about a lot in the health field, but people talk a lot about harms in general and give very general advice, like: be optimistic about sadness. , must eat well and exercise ... These are essential for health but not easy to do with stress people

The causes of stress are very different, but the body's response to them is the same. Therefore, it is necessary to gain the necessary knowledge about each stage to have a positive and successful way to deal with stress

Alarm phase

Psychological activities are enhanced, especially the process of focusing attention, memory and thinking.



The physiological functions of the body, especially the sympathetic nervous system, increase activity, increase blood pressure, heart rate, breathing and muscle tone ... when the individual is exposed to stressors. This phase occurs quickly from a few minutes to several hours. Patients may die at this stage if the stressors are too strong or too complicated. If passed, the initial reactions move to the adaptation phase

Adaptation phase

This is the period when the body's resistance increases, so can humans master stress situations.



If the adaptability is high, the physiological and psychological functions of the body are restored. In contrast, the recovery process will not occur and the body will go into exhaustion.

Exhausted period

The response to stress becomes pathological when a sudden, intense tress situation exceeds the body's ability to adapt. During this period, the psychophysiological focus on the alarm stage reappeared.

Clinically, the reaction to acute stress makes people feel overly excited both psychologically and physically with the manifestations: increasing muscle tone making facial expressions tense, rigid gestures, feeling side pain in the body; plant neurological disorders such as tachycardia, pain in the precordial area, increased blood pressure, shortness of breath, fainting, sweating, headache, and pain in many places, especially muscles. Patients increase sensation, especially hearing, so the normal sound also becomes uncomfortable, irritable, restless, agitated, behavioral disorders ...

Everyone has a different way of responding

This physiological response depends on the person's knowledge of harmful stimuli and whether the person interprets these stimuli as threatening or harmful to them, as well as depending on ability to predict and control harmful events.

It is better to predict when a harmful event will occur than to have no information of this event. A threatening event will have less harmful consequences if we predict when it will happen, if we can do something before that event and if we receive feedback. back to the effect of that action.

The importance of predictive and control is also seen in human responses to stressors.

The perception of control has an effect on the effects of stress

Events are not equally stressful in everyone. The level of stress depends on the meaning of the event and the potentials available to each person as well as the skills and potentials of each person in dealing with the event.

When an event is perceived to be benign, positive emotions such as joy, love, happiness, excitement, and serenity will take place in the person concerned.



If the event is judged negative, emotions like anxiety, fear, guilt, disappointment or depression will appear.

Positive events and stresses promote health. While both the fact that the event is negative and the consideration of coping capacity is inadequate and ineffective are the factors needed to make stress appear.

The more we invest in a certain purpose or activity, the heavier the stress will be when that goal or activity is threatened. On the contrary, awareness of the ability to control events will reduce stress and lack of this will increase stress. The perception of control has an effect on the impact of stress on each person. Stress increases when the person feels that the behavior and results are not related to each other.

Time and frequency of stressors are also considered to play a central role in determining the negative consequences of stress on health.



Personality factors play an important role in each person's stress response. When confronted with a stressful event, people will try to 'neutralize' harm and prevent threats by cognitive and behavioral actions to overcome the demands of the event. concentration is stressful.

Each person will choose or adapt to better suit the environment or change the environment to adapt h.