You’ve probably wondered what causes stress…and why it happens when it happens right? If you’re a sufferer of stress, and if you feel the physical affects of stress then you probably want to know what the heck is going on in your body when you do experience it.
One of the pioneers of the study of stress, Walter Cannon, developed a very strong and lasting theory on stress called the “fight or flight” response. His studying and researched proved that when a person…or any organism for that matter…experiences and sort of shocking even or threat, they or it instantly reacts by getting a surge of hormones to help the body react to the threat.
The hormones permit you to have an abundance of strength, as well as speed to either combat your attacker, or get away from them in an instant. The body gets a jolt in the heart rate and in the blood pressure, which acts to deliver more oxygen as well as blood sugar that will help support the major muscles from failing or fatiguing.
In other words, you get a boost of energy so that you can kick some butt if you have to, or get the hell out of dodge if you have to.
Part of the natural flight-or-fight response also includes an increase in sweating so that your muscles are cooled quicker and are able to become more efficient.
Also, blood-flow is regulated in order to reduce blood loss in case of damage to any area to the body. Hormones also help give us laser focus on our threat, to the exclusion of everything else. All of this guides us to survive a life-threatening event.
Now, this same reaction can also become triggered when you’re faced with something unexpected or something that frustrates you on the pursuit toward your goal. Usually, if the threat is small, our response will also be small…in fact we may not even notice the stress in the midst of the dozens other irritations of a stressful day.
Unfortunately, this reaction of the body to spring into survival mode also has negative effects on us as well. Most noticeably we become anxious, jumpy or nervous, easily excitable, and irritable. This can diminish our ability to be as effective as we can be otherwise. When we’re plagued with a constant shakiness and a pounding heart, we can find it tricky to perform normal skills.
When our total and complete focus is on survival, it takes away from our capability to tap into our many resources that gets us through the day. It can turn us into virtual walking zombies, making us more accident-prone and less capable of making wise decisions.
If you want to be a productive human being in your day to day life, then you need to be calm and rational, and be able to control yourself socially.
Therefore you must learn to control your fight or flight reaction so that later down the road you don’t suffer from stress related problems…or be plagued by bad health due to stress.
Hopefully this article and the last on the subject have given you a better idea about what causes stress, and made you understand how important it is that you control it.
