We recently learned that stress effects everyone differently. Some people handle stress well while others can’t deal with even a little bit of stress; everyone handles stress differently. There are good ways and bad ways to handle stress. Smoking and overeating are unhealthy ways while exercising and writing are healthy ways to deal with stress.
Stress can be from things like commuting from school to home every day or even being the CEO of a big corporate office. Stress over time wears down the body not only emotionally, but physically too. Stress raises blood pressure and studies have shown that stress changes how blood clots which is more likely to cause a heart attack.
Not all stress is necessarily bad stress. Chemicals and hormones are released during stressful situations, your pulse and breathing is increased, muscles begin to tense up and your brain requires more oxygen. All these can boost ones immune system. Good stress helps one use their brain and think along with staying active. There is bad stress such as chronic stress which is the response to emotional pressure suffered for a long period of time on a individual who has no control over the situation. Chronic stress lowers ones immunity; digestive, excretory and reproductive systems eventually stop working properly. Once the chronic stress levels have passed, the body requires its normal state. These actions, if continuous, will lead to damaging effects on the body.
There are three different types of stress that carry physical and mental health risks for a person:
- Routine stress- pressures of work, family and other daily responsibilities.
- Negative change- losing a job, illness or breakup/ divorce.
- Traumatic stress- major accident, losing someone, natural disasters, war or assault.
As stated earlier, your body handles stress in different ways. Some people may experience digestive issues, others may experience headaches, fatigue, anger or depression.
The effects of stress build up over time. Exercising, avoiding stressful situations, seek support from family and friends, talking to doctors are a few ways for help cop with stress.
Communicating Health, Science and the Environment 
I thought it was interesting that only one of the charts showed low income as being a major cause of stress. It would be interesting to see charts comparing those with low income and those who are upper middle class or above to see what the major causes of stress are for each group.
-Megan DeBanto
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I can totally relate. Stress is really rough to go through and its a lot harder for your body to deal with. One of my AP teachers in high school got so stressed out during the final test week, that she got really sick. Her voice was gone and she had a cough. All because her immune system was weaken by the amount of stress she was under. Good blog!
Abigail Cain
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