Stress and the individual

Be it popular discussion to extant literature, stress and its effect on human health is often talked about. It’s not because stress is a new problem. It’s because now there is more awareness about how stress can or is having an impact on human beings. Stress has been talked about right from the ancient days when human beings were cave dwellers and the fear of the unknown created anxiety leading to stress. But the question is why, even with so much advancement in science and technology coupled with some people’s ability to predict the future, stress still manages to bog us down? Is it that ignorance was bliss and awareness has made us more fearful, more paranoid? It’s a pressing question that needs to be answered. There is a lot of information on the ill-effects of stress on health. For researchers, new areas like Psychobiology and Psychoneuroimmunology have emerged in Behavioural and Medical sciences. Yet, the problem remains. The simple reason is that the thought process of human beings in the evolutionary cycle has still remained programmed for the same basic instinct of survival. Interestingly, it is not just the human beings, but the animals too that worry about survival. The basic emotion of fear still continues to haunt humanity. Stress, we must understand, is not a cause. It is an effect that arises out of an emotional state. Psychologists talk about two kinds of stress — eustress and distress. While eustress is good stress that doesn’t lead to negative consequences, it is distress that is harmful. However, at times, even too much of eustress may lead to negative consequences resulting out of euphoria. Nevertheless, we have to understand that stress is a serious issue in the present day society, causing several psychological problems including some that lead to suicide. The important thing that must be borne in mind is that stress is a reaction of an individual, a deliberate act. Thus, controlling stress depends on an individual’s coping skills. The same emotional state can have a wide range of outcomes depending on how it is tackled. We, therefore, must focus on the stress tolerance capacity of the individual. The important question is how to raise this stress resilience. The first step lies in identifying that state. Since stress is a non-specific response, many a time it may not be possible for an individual to even realise that he is stressed. It is an outcome of the thought process and the remedy lies in changing the thought process. Since thought processes are conditioned mental states, it may require a lot of mental training for that to be reoriented. But it is certainly possible. Just like for training the body there are physical exercises, for shaping the mind, too, there are mental exercises. The basic step is changing the thought pattern. Rather than being skeptical about the intention of God, it is important to have full faith. This is the essential first step. Every day, you need to spend some time with God, praying to him, thinking about his kindness. The second step is talking to yourself. That means, be on your own sometimes every day. Talk to yourself. What have you been doing, what do you need to do? The third step is talking to genuine well-wishers who give positive vibes. Though all three steps are important, the last one is perhaps the most significant as it’s difficult to identify such persons.