stress

moonrise over rapperswil, 2008

the photo is called “moonrise over rapperswil” and was taken on a warm summer's evening.

stress

the word stress is on everyone’s lips, but also in every brain, body and heart. even the world health organization calls it the largest health threat of the 21^st century.

stress researcher hans selye described stress as a response and adjustment reaction of the body via the brain to an emotional or physical imbalance.

how many times have we longed for a break, but ignored our needs and kept on working instead of taking a rest? this leads to a release of stress hormones that help us to suppress symptoms of the exhaustion setting in, we can even increase our performance for a short time – we are “high” on hormones. we often stimulate our system with pick-me-ups like caffeine, nicotine or alcohol. however, after some time, dysfunctions such as reduced brain performance and reduced learning ability with higher error rates or general inefficiency set in.  the body gradually starts to rebel and various psychosomatic disease patterns appear.

every occurrence of stress leads to a stress reaction, which leads to a depressed mood on an emotional level, to signs of exhaustion on a physiological-hormonal level and for instance to lack of concentration on a cognitive level. heavy stress results in a blockade, we are jumpy, grow stiff and find it difficult to think. test anxiety ,for example, makes everything that one has studied for disappear. 

we either manage to overcome stress or stress overcomes us, while the latter – as constant psychological stress – can lead to serious secondary diseases.

until now, i have talked about stress in connection with overwork. i am convinced that signs of overwork (burnout) and the correspondent sequelae are mainly of other origin.

constant psychological stress should rather be called “relationship stress”, it is man in relation to himself and his environment, with all tasks raining in on him as well as challenges and harm (traumata).

constant psychological stress occurs when strains seem impossible to overcome from a subjective point of view, when one’s own social position and identity are about to be redefined or – and this is very important – after experiencing traumata.

psychobiology knows two types of stress, distress and eustress.

distress is known as the negative, threatening and morbid type, while eustress embodies the positive and challenging and is important for our motivation of being and creativity.

by the way, too little stress is just as harmful as is too much stress.

psychobiological healing can only be achieved by reducing stress, not only by reducing one’s work load for example, but mainly by general reduction or elimination of the often underlying and subconsciously operating causative traumata.

why do people react differently to the same stressful occurrence? stress tolerance apparently increases through experience of stress and expectation of stress or if i can see a (divine) “sense” in the event that traumatized me, i.e. after a natural disaster.

recognizing stress factors at an early stage and immediately eliminating them as well as accepting challenges that make us happy keeps us healthy and content. this is best achieved through the positive experience of mastering a challenge.