: Stress Effects and Management

The stress is around every society affecting people in so many ways. It has been observed that in one way or the other, people are exposed to situations, which are stressful on different levels such as interpersonal, community and societal level. It is up to the society and its people that how they react to different stressors and it is all dependent on the fact that how positive and healthy a society is, which allows its people to deal with such challenges. However, society is not the only important element, rather personal ability of people is also crucial to deal with stress. There could be people, who are optimistic and takes things positively, even when they are facing challenges. It happens because they don’t back away from stress and problems, rather face them with face in front, and learn from such situations to become better and stronger individuals (Schneiderman, Ironson, & Siegel, 2005)

It is certainly important that how people deal with different kind of stress levels, but it is also critical to know that which factors are behind these stressors. The one must know that which elements are causing stress so that stress management can be done accordingly. A study was conducted by Michie, which tried to explore causes of stress and how they can be managed with regards to workplace. The study found that there are various causes of stress at work; few of them are directly related to the work people do at their jobs, and few others are related to organizational and social context related to work. The persons feel stressed when they have to work for long hours with extra workload, or when they are pressurized with time and performance. The other causes of stress at work include complex and very difficult tasks, bad working conditions, no considerable breaks to relax, and unclear direction from the management. The poor style of management is also found to be another important stress factor. The study also concluded that stress can be handled by giving enough support to people and training them to deal with stress. The people should get support from different aspects such as counseling, health, and clinical methods so that they can take up the challenge of stress (Michie, 2002)

Another study was conducted to identify that why stress is found in high school students. This descriptive study only focused on school students to talk about academic stress. The objective of the study was to know that what is general stress level in high school students, and whichfactors cause this stress. The study also tried to identify the students’ responses to various kinds of stressors they face in their academic life at school. The number of high school students was 335, who were part of this study between the age ranges 15 to 19 years. The stress level of these students were identified and analyzed with relevant responses. It was found out that normal level of stress was associated with 54% students, whereas 39% studentsresponded with lower stress level. But female high school students’ stress levels were way higher than the male students. The studentsresponded that main factors behind their stress levels were their exams, family troubles as well as career path. The students told that to deal with such stressors, they used to listen to music, doing exercise or discussing the stress problem with others (Acosta-Gómez, et al., 2018)

It has been observed in various research studies that there is few perceived stress elements associated with life events as well as lifestyle. A study was conducted to look at these perceived stressors in life events of the Iranian population. The study included 4583 people in this community based study to know that which factors are behind the perceived stressors of life. The study was able to identify various perceived stressors with different life events. The two stressful events of life were linked with increased level of perceived stress; one was social problems, and the other was family conflicts. It was also found out that higher education and higher physical activity levels were linked with low level perception of stress. The low as well as middle level income was another major perceived level of stress in the general population, which shows that various stressors in life are associated with life events, and these life events can be perceived to create stress for people (Feizi, Aliyari, & Roohafza, 2012). The stress cause and effects are needed to analyze so that stress management techniques can be developed to handle stress of various kinds. According to Colten (2017), it is important to figure out that what causes stress in children as well as adolescents so that their mental health conditions can be handled accordingly. It was revealed by Colten that stress and mental health are interrelated in so many ways.

It has been observed that stress can be a major thing behind bad mental state as when mental state of mind is filled with stressors, it is hard for people to cope with situations. The people even can get mentally ill like they can have various kinds of disorders. A study was conducted in 2014 to investigate that what how effective training of stress management can be for women having various depression disorders. It is a fact that when stress increases, and people are not able to handle it, they go into depression, and in severe cases, they can be linked with depression disorders. In this study, 40 depression disorder patients were taken and they were assigned to involve and interact with control and intervention groups. It was found out that there was significant relationship between depression, social adaptability and stress. It was also found out that training of stress management with the help of techniques of cognitive behavioral can be an instrumental factor to decrease depression and developing the essence of social adaptability(Abbasian, Najimi, Meftagh, Ghasemi, & Afshar, 2014)

 According to Miller & Shelly (2010), stress is something, which is a regular happening for many people in the society. They said that stress can be of many types coming from various sources such as academic pressures, peer pressure, friends, parents, siblings, financial concerns, societal expectations, and job pressure. It is easy to identify these few common causes of stress, but it is interesting to see that regardless of these common situations, some people get more depression from stress than the others. But fact of the matter is that whatever the level of stress is, people can still deal with it by applying various techniques and methods in their daily routine. One of the techniques to deal with stress was identified as an important one, and it is exercise. A study was conducted in 2013 to investigate the fact that what role exercise can play in stress management. It was found that in stress management program, exercise can be an effective as well as important component. Different types of exercises can play a vital role in dealing with stress. It is great to know that even a common method like exercise has the capacity to play a role in stress management (Jackson, 2013)

The World Health Organization has said regarding stress that “stress is a significant problem of our times and affects both physical as well as the mental health of people”Keeping this statement in view from WHO, it becomes even more important to find ways so that stress management can be done effectively to deal with effects of stress on human beings. So, Varvogli&Darviri reviewed literature to figure out most important techniques to deal with stress. One of the important identified techniques wasemotional freedom technique, biofeedback, relaxation response, autogenic training as well as progressive muscle relaxation. Few other techniques were also identified by the study such as cognitive behavioral therapy, transcendental meditation, diaphragmatic breathing, and guided imagery. It shows that if purpose is to manage stress effectively, then there are so many techniques for people to look at, and these techniques have been identified from research (Varvogli & Darviri, 2011)

 References of Stress Effects and Management

Abbasian, F., Najimi, A., Meftagh, S. D., Ghasemi, G., & Afshar, H. (2014). The effect of stress management training on stress and depression in women with depression disorders: Using cognitive-behavioral techniques. Journal of Education and Health Promotion, 3 (70).

Acosta-Gómez, M. G., Roca-Chiapas, J. M., Zavala-Bervena, A., Cisneros, A. E., Pérez, V. R., Rodrigues, C. D., et al. (2018). Stress in High School Students: A Descriptive Study. Journal of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, 1 (1), 1-10.

Colten, M. (2017). Adolescent Stress: Causes and Consequences (reprint Edition ed.). Taylor & Francis.

Feizi, A., Aliyari, R., & Roohafza, H. (2012). Association of Perceived Stress with Stressful Life Events, Lifestyle and Sociodemographic Factors: A Large-Scale Community-Based Study Using Logistic Quantile Regression. Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine , 1-12.

Jackson, E. (2013). STRESS RELIEF: The Role of Exercise in Stress Management. ACSM’s Health & Fitness Journal, 17 (3), 14–19.

Michie, S. (2002). CAUSES AND MANAGEMENT OF STRESS AT WORK. Occupational & Environmental Medicine, 59 (1), 67–72.

Miller, A. R., & Shelly, S. (2010). Living with Stress. Infobase Publishing.

Schneiderman, N., Ironson, G., & Siegel, S. D. (2005). STRESS AND HEALTH: Psychological, Behavioral, and Biological Determinants. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 1, 607–628.

Varvogli, L., & Darviri, C. (2011). Stress management techniques: evidence-based procedures that reduce stress and promote health. HEALTH SCIENCE JOURNAL, 5 (2), 74-89.