How Would YOU Define Stress?

Here is a short one-question quiz for you:

Stress can be defined as...
     a.  Something that causes physical or psychological tension; it can cause illness.
     b.  When an experience exceeds an individual's resources or ability to cope.
     c.  The physiological response of the body in the presence of environmental stressors.
     d.  A perceived threat to an individual's ability to cope or adapt.
     e.  An emotionally negative and unpleasant feeling.
     f.  All of the above.
    
If your first response was thinking "Stress is what happens when entering nursing school!", there are many who would agree with you! But seriously, let us examine each individual answer so that we can learn together.

The dictionary defines stress in answer A (Merriam-Webster, 2009). Yet exposure to stress does not always cause illness. Stress can be a platform for positive action or change. Studying for a test, polishing up a resume, making the decision to eat healthier after binging on too much pizza that resulted in a stomach ache are all examples.

Answer B is also good. These experiences can be internal or external events (Haber, Krainovich-Miller, McMahon, & Price-Hoskins, 1997). An example of an internal event might be not getting enough sleep, which results in not being able to focus in class and not fully understanding the topic, eventually causing you to door poorly on the test. This in turn will cause more stress. An external event might be exposure to a pathogen and not having the ability to fight it (because you didn't let your body get enough rest!), resulting in infection.

Answer C is an excellent choice. Hans Selye conceptualized stress as a response to environmental stressors, which can be physical or emotional, pleasant or not, and they cause the body to adapt (Lewis, Collier, & Heitkemper, 1996). This is known as the General Adaptation Syndrome, which we will look into more a bit later.

If you chose answer D, this is also correct. Psychologist Richard Lazarus focused his theory on stress from the standpoint of perception (Lo, 2002). This can explain why something that stresses one person terribly is handled fairly well by another.

Did you choose answer E? This is true also (Obrist & Buchi, 2008). Yet think about the stress you feel preparing to celebrate Christmas or anticipating the birth of your first child or grandchild. Are these really negative and unpleasant, or rather excitement? Hopefully you are beginning to see that not all stress is bad.

If you chose answer F, hooray for you!

By choosing this as the best answer, you already have a good understanding about what stress is. We are now ready to move on to learning more about negative and positive stressors. See you soon!

References:

Haber, J., Krainovich-Miller, B., McMahon, A. L., & Price-Hoskins, P. (1997). Comprehensive Psychiatric Nursing (5th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Mosby.

Lewis, S. M., Collier, I. E., & Heitkemper, M. M. (1996). Medical-surgical nursing (4th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Mosby.

Lo, R. (2002). A longitudinal study of perceived level of stress, coping and self-esteem of undergraduate nursing students: An Australian case study. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 39(2), 119-126. doi:10.1046/j.1365-2648.2000.02251.x

Mich, F. C. (Ed.). (2009). Merriam-Webster's collegiate dictionary (11th ed.). Springfield, MA: Author.

Obrist, B., & Buchi, S. (2008). Stress as an idiom for resilience: health and migration among sub-Saharan Africans in Switzerland. Anthropology & Medicine, 15(3), 251-261.