Personality : Concepts of Stress

Stress is a commonly used term today in society. Arising out of modernization and the need for people to catch up with the fast paced environment today. In personality and illness, the concepts of stress is the common variable that exist in many models. An important element but often a misunderstood phenomenon.

Stress is a subjective feeling produced by events that are perceived as uncontrollable and particularly threatening. These events overwhelms you and often leave a deep disconcerting feeling inside. These events are known as Stressors. Stressors are events perceived or evoked but ultimately lead to stress situations. Stressors oftens puts us at a place where we produce opposing tendencies, such as wanting and not wanting an object or an activity. E.g. knowing that you need to study as exams are closing in, but you put it off as long as possible. Stressors are outside of our power to control, such as the exam; hence, the exam is the stressor.

Stress response is a when a stressor appears, people typically experiences a pattern of emotional and physiological reactions. Imagine you see a suspicious looking person heading towards you at night in a quiet street,

at that moment, you experience higher heart rates, your palms gets cold and clammy, blood pressure goes up, and your feet and palms beging to sweat. That's is your body preparing itself for a fight-or-flight mode. These are briefly experiences that occurs "in the moment". However, if a person is exposed to a stressor daily, the fight-or-fight mode is just the first step in a chain reaction termed General Adaptation Syndrome(GAS) by Hans Selye(1976), pioneer in stress researching.

Image above depicts the stages a person undergo after being repeatedly exposed to a stressor.

A good example would be a hostage situation, fight-or-flight mode kicks in as the victim ready to challenge the stressor. Thereafter, locked up in a confinement with the uncertainty of what the aggressor might do, the victim is continously stressed even at the slightest sound. Every time the aggressor comes in to check, the victim is exposed to extreme stress, but eventually develops resistance towards the stressor. Note however as, resistance increase the bodily resources starts to deplete and the body heads for a breakdown and reaches the panic zone where physiological resources gone and the body is most suspectible to illness.

picture by National Geographic Locked Up Abroad Philippines

MAJOR LIFE EVENTS AND DAILY HASSLES

Major life events and daily hassles can also be our stressors, what's most important is how we perceive it. Remember, how we perceive and interpret an event do contribute to affecting our health and illness. Coping with stress is essential as it improves our well-being in the long term. How can we cope with stress? Some of the steps are:

a.Identifying the potential stressor/problem and start to systematically deal with it. E.g. Exams is in a months time, plan ahead and organized time with discipline
b.On the emotional plane, creating affirmations and telling positive things to yourself do result in positive outcomes as we have a change in perspective on the stressor

Personality types do have a major role in coping with stress. A conscienctious prone personality person tend to cope with stress better because they are naturally organized and eliminate most daily hassles. A scrupulous person may face accumulated stressors daily due to disorganized personality. With that in mind, we can identify our personality types and adjust our activities to reduce stress and allow us to cope better and lead a stress free life.