by PHIL JOFFE “Stress,“ my old American t-shirt declares, is “that confusion created when the mind must override the body’s basic desire to choke the living crap out of some idiot who desperately needs it.“ The street-smart definition has its point. Stress is the inability to release pent-up tension constructively.
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he seriousness of the threat to our emotional and physical well being from stress should never be minimised. We endure dangerously high, potentially life-threatening stress levels. In South Africa, many live in apprehension, suffering anxiety. We worry about our cars being hijacked or stolen, the privacy of homes being violated, burgled and invaded, lives needlessly threatened and
taken. We fume as more evidence of corruption in high places emerges. On the roads we dodge kamikaze taxi-drivers and evade security-van and bank heists in progress. Omnipresent is the threat of AIDS and a junk status economic future, redundancies, and debt. The army of stressed, tense people in the country is so large that fortune-tellers are offering to read fists! Lifestyle magazines write about interesting, neurotic people and offer readers Best-Stressed Lists! Increasing numbers of executives are eating soup everyday because one-hour lunch breaks don’t allow enough time for them to get their teeth unclenched. Daily, we face situations in which pressure is put on us to react. Anxiety, anger, frustration are often the order of the day. These can cause psychological stress, the damaging effects of which are manifested in neurosis, depression and psychosomatic illness. The physical symptoms of stress include headaches, chest pains, palpitations, breathlessness, indigestion, diarrhoea, eczema or dermatitis. Mental symptoms include sleeplessness, irritability, poor memory, inability to concentrate, intolerance to noise, and impulsive behaviour. Stress generates heightened blood cholesterol levels and raised blood pressure. Contemporary stress thus becomes a direct contributor to ulcers, colitis, hypertension, coronary disease and strokes. However, the picture is not all gloom. A certain level of positive stress can be beneficial when it challenges us to grow more alert and spurs us to find successful solutions to the problems we face. The hyped Olympic sportsman before action, the decisionmaking go-getter who launches his plan of action, all need that adrenalin rush for peak performance and achievement. Whatever the particular circumstances, all stressful situations share in common certain physiological conditions. Understand them and the body can conquer the harmful effects of stress. We 76
inherit a series of primeval reflex actions that enable the human organism to cope with environmental stress, known as the FrightFlight-Fight syndrome. In any sudden stressful situation, the brain triggers the body for action, preparing it for either flight or fight. The central nervous system immediately releases hormones such as adrenaline and noradrenaline into the bloodstream. These hormones increase the rate and power of the heartbeat, to force more blood from the heart to fuel the muscles. Vital extra oxygen is obtained by the dilation of the bronchial tubes, while the spleen contracts automatically to release more red vessels to carry this needed oxygen in the blood. To obtain further energy, more glucose is released from its store in the liver, while deposits of fatty acids and cholesterol are also raided, to provide further fuel for energy. These fats will also enable the blood to clot more effectively, should the body suffer a wound in the approaching action, for which it is being armed. Blood vessels in the skin constrict to route the blood to the
