In a
three-year study, Ohio State University researchers found healthy cats showed
signs of illness when stressed and sick cats became healthier when stress
levels were reduced as reported in a National Daily. Researchers hope cat
owners and vets will look at a sick cat's environment before deciding on
euthanasia.
The 20
sick cats in the study were all diagnosed with a chronic pain syndrome that
affects a cat's bladder and were scheduled to be euthanised. The researchers
say about 1.5 per cent of house cats have lower urinary tract diseases and many
pet owners can't stand the messes that come with them. As a result, they say
millions of sick cats are euthanised or turned over to shelters every year. To
cats, stress might be unwanted attention, a dirty litter box or strange noises.
If a cat’s life can be devastated by stress, then why it should not affect the
human being?
The longer he waited, the more Mr. Sharma worried. For
weeks he had been suffering from aching muscles, loss of appetite, restless
sleep, and a complete sense of exhaustion. At first he tried to ignore these
problems, but eventually he became so short-tempered and irritable that his
wife insisted that he gets a thorough
checkup. Now, sitting in the doctor's office and wondering what the verdict
would be, he didn't even notice when Mrs. Sujata took the seat beside him. They
had been good friends when she worked in the front office at the plant, where
Mr. Sharma is a shift supervisor. But he hadn't seen her since she left three
years ago to take a job as a customer service representative. Her gentle poke
in the ribs brought him around, and within minutes they were talking and
gossiping as if she had never left.
"You got out just in time," he
told her. "Since the reorganization, nobody feels safe. It used to be that
as long as you did your work, you had a job. That's not for sure anymore. They
expect the same production rates even though two guys are now doing the work of
three. We're so backed up I'm working twelve-hour shifts six days a week. I
swear, I hear those machines humming in my sleep. People take long sick leaves
just to get a break. Morale is so bad they're talking about bringing in some
consultants to figure out a better way to get the job done."
"Well, I really miss you
guys," she said. "I'm afraid I jumped from the frying pan into the
fire. In my new job, the computer routes the calls and they never stop. I even
have to schedule my lunch and tea breaks. All I hear the whole day, are complaints
from unhappy customers. I try to be helpful and sympathetic, but I can't
promise anything without getting my boss's approval. Most of the time, I'm
caught between what the customer wants and the company’s policy. I'm not sure
who I'm supposed to keep happy. The other representatives are so uptight and
tense they don't even talk to one another. We all go to our own little cubicles
and stay there until quitting time. To make matters worse, my mother's health
is deteriorating. If only I could use some of my sick time to look after her.
No wonder I'm in here with migraine headaches and high blood pressure. A lot of
the representatives are seeing the employee assistance counselor and taking
stress management classes, which seems to help. But sooner or later, someone
will have to make some changes in the way the place is run."
The above
scenario is a recorded version in a hospital lounge. And it is not the case of
Mr. Sharma or Mrs. Sujata, it may happen to any one of us, whether of any age,
studying, working or not working. Everyone on this planet is deeply stressed
out. It is growing as a big menace and the looming dangers are yet to be
realized. Stress is the outcome of interaction of our body and mind functions.
Weak body or mind is more susceptible to stress than the strong body or mind.
Stress is in fact psychosomatic. It is the consequence of how we regulate or to
put it more appropriately, how we do not effectively regulate the physical,
mental and emotional functioning of our being. The human system is built to
take certain degree of stress. Very much like laughter and tears, energetic and
lazy, need for companionship and solitude, stress response helps in effective
body mind ‘soma–psyche’ reactions to the situations. Problems are evident when
stress is frequently experienced and it becomes the part of life, such that
mind is set to work in stress only. In such case body is set to create a
different chemistry for its functioning, which ultimately becomes the cause of
diseases. The ‘dis-ease’ created by abuse of our minds and bodies and can lead
to totally different symptoms in different people. Some would react by just bad
temper or petulance where as some may have a heart attack (Verma, 2004).
Different theorists have seen stress in
different perspective. Stress is an adaptive response, mediated by individual
characteristics and/or psychological processes, that is a consequence of any internal
or external action, situation, or event that places special physical, mental
and/or psycho-emotional demands upon a person. Behaviourist theory and consequently behaviour
therapy works from the perspective that ineffective modes of behaviour are
as a result of learned experiences and as such can be replaced by learning
different responses in like situations. (Hayes,1994). Alternatively, cognitive
theory and cognitive therapy operate from the view that the way one perceives
things determines how one acts towards them. Identifying distorted
cognitions allows an opportunity for the individual to change these distortions
for a more effective view which enables life to be dealt with more positively.
(Hayes, 1994). It was perhaps as a follow on from this theoretical viewpoint
that Cooper (1981) states: ‘organisations and institutions can lay the
foundations for better health.., but it is up to the individual to reduce
his/her internal pressures or to redesign his/her lifestyle... Unless the
individual takes an active part in the process of stress prevention and coping,
institution or government policy changes will be of little use.’ However, to be
able to have that opportunity, one needs awareness of and access to the tools
and methods by which this might be accomplished. The adverse effects of
occupational stress on productivity, absenteeism and health related problems
are substantial and well documented by Hurrell, Nelson &Simmons, 1998;
Kasl, 1983,1998; Quick, Nelson & Hurrell, 1997; Sauter, 1998; Sutherland
& Cooper, 1998 (Verma, 2004).
The author
observed in the newspapers and magazines that, there was a gradual rise in
reporting of cases related to tension, stresses among youths and growing
concern for health in our country, since last decade. This needs to be
confirmed through the research data. One of recent reports in a National
Magazine reported an unprecedented surge in the turnover of 1500 Crores
pharmaceutical industry especially in production of drugs for “Lifestyle
Diseases”, which rose from 12% in 1985 to 52% in 2010. Life-style diseases such
as heart-attack, diabetes, hyper-tension, obesity, insomnia, diseases of lungs and
digestive system, etc. are on the rise among young generation of age 12-25
years of age, the report indicated. It also gave an alarming statistics of
survey of 300 middle class urban citizens of age group 25-60 in New Delhi on
their preventive health check-up, which indicated 85 cases of diabetes, 58
cases of hyper tension, 22 cases of heart diseases and 43 cases of stone in
Gal-bladder. The report also indicated that root cause of life-style diseases
are poor self management leading to social and occupational stressors and in
most cases the persons concerned never knew about their disease.
Channer (2001) writes, “the
business of management is still largely discussed and taught as if management
was science, with the implicit belief that most significant management issues
can be analysed, understood and resolved from a rational perspective. This view
largely ignores human nature, and implies that the reactions, feelings and
behaviours of individuals at work are somehow different from those they
experience and exhibit in their rest of life. This myth tends to reinforce the
belief that organisational life is conducted on rational basis, with most of
the ‘non-rational’ energy being employed in understanding the ‘political
dimension’ of the organisation. Comparatively little teaching (other than
specialized human resource interventions) is devoted to discussing or thinking
through the management of the more human, or indeed emotional, side of work –
that is, how individuals react to issues that impact them personally in the
business environment. Our experience, however, tends to confirm Tichy and
Sherman’s observation that ‘work, inevitably, is an emotional experience;
healthy people can’t just drop their feelings off at home like a set of golf
clubs’. (Channer & Hope, 2001).” A healthy employee would benefit
organisation and his family with good returns than an unhealthy and sick
employee. You would certainly agree with the many researches who have proved in
high percentage of disease affecting the human system are psychosomatic and
their primary causes are thought process, attitude and belief. In other words,
the way that you have nurtured and conditioned yourself to react to situations
has resulted in your internal physiological changes sustained for long time, which
either evolved as disease or allowed disease state to exist (Verma, 2004).
Cooper
(1998) pointed out that which disease occurs and which internal process is
involved, is the consequence of a very complex interaction of psychological,
constitutional or genetic and environmental factors. The pattern will be unique
for every individual. For example one person may suppress anger and eventually
develops the mental dysfunction of depression, where as another may suppress
anger and eventually develops migraine. You would be surprised to note that
each individual is unique so as the development of psychosomatic diseases is
concerned and therefore a single coping strategy won’t work equally on
everyone. Emotional stress leads to physiological stress and this result in
eventual breakdown (disease) of the target organ system. Once we provide our
body system, anxiety and depression as, input the process within the body would
be set in such a way that the resultant output would be certainly detrimental
to the body. Since each individual reacts differently to the inputs, the
difference in the outcome caused is due to the variations in the intrinsic and
cultivated reaction pattern of individuals (Peiffer,1996).
As
the author said earlier, you create depression. It takes efforts to create
depression. It’s hard work and requires specific type of actions. You have to
collapse your shoulders, breath low, look down a lot, think of worst possible
scenarios of life all the time, talk in a sad-dead tone, throw your biochemistry
into turmoil, remain always on fire and excessive use of drug or alcohol, and
you are bound to be depressed at most times (Verma, 2004). In fact such people
develop a kind of internal communication mechanism that they react with
depression, distress or tension with any kind of external event occurring with
them. Yet another interesting point the author came across, that some people
get so many secondary gains such as attentions from others, sympathy- that they
adapt this style of communication as their natural state of living. But this
state is a lot dangerous than any other state. These are the observations the
author could make while conducting an independent survey of stress reaction due
to altered physical state, emotional vulnerability and extraneous causes among
342 subjects (178 Males and 164 females) chosen randomly of middle class and
upper middle class income groups.
During
the survey, the author asked the respondents to rate the items from very high
to low extent on impending stress reactions due to altered physical state,
emotional vulnerability and extraneous causes as they perceive it. There are
innumerable personal, social and environmental factors, which generate stress
and a list was provided to them. The symptoms are caused by
altered
physical state of the individual whereas others may be related to one’s
emotional vulnerability or extraneous causes. The list provided below show each
item from high to low in each category as rated by the most of the respondents.
There is no one-to-one relationship among these, and therefore may be read
independently as three different factors in three columns. It may be noted that
there are certain individuals who would feel stressed under any circumstances
because they are constantly in the inflamed internal state.
Altered physical state
|
Emotional Vulnerability
|
Extraneous causes
|
Chronic illness
|
Hurry
|
Debts, loans to recover.
|
Pain
|
Impatience
|
Legal problems, property
suits related to will.
|
Physical suffering
|
Aggression, Pessimism
|
|
Reduced energy level
|
Hostility
|
Change of
residence/place of work
|
Disfigurement
|
Anger
|
Lack of space, noisy
locality
|
Loss of limbs or organs
due to disease/ accident
|
Frustration
|
High level of pollution
|
Inferiority
|
Filthy surroundings
|
|
Ageing
|
Insecurity
|
Sensory irritants-light, Smell,
sound pollutants
|
Infirmity
|
Fear (death, Crowds,
heights, disease, etc)
|
|
Medications
|
Money constraints
|
|
Drugs
|
Excess high ambition
|
work overload/ under
load
|
Alcohol
|
Jealousy
|
Peer pressure
|
Loss of libido
|
Revenge
|
Unfamiliar situations
|
Sexual dysfunction
|
Greed
|
Sexual restrictions
|
Infertility
|
Guilt
|
Uncongenial home
|
Hyper reactive physical
state
|
Scare of supernatural
|
Social problems
|
Too much commuting
|
||
Over belief in astrology
|
Marital problems,
divorce
|
|
Poor self-image
|
Loneliness, death of
spouse
|
|
Over sensitive nature
|
Low reward for work
|
|
Hyper reactive emotional
state
|
Financial insecurity
|
|
Poor motivation
|
||
Lack of rest and
holidays
|
||
Job insecurity
|
||
High risk jobs
|
||
Poor leadership in the
organisation
|
In
the same survey, the author asked the respondents, “how do you express in words
when you are in the state of deep stress”? Often people reveal their
subconscious state of mind and their level of stress by the words they choose
to express their emotions and such words gets repeated over-and-over again
thousand times daily without being conscious about them. In fact with this they
are expressing the state of stress they are experiencing. Higher the intensity
of words, higher the inner flame of stress.
A
few typical sentences urged by the respondents are here;
I
just hate it.
It
is disgusting.
I
am really tired.
Nothing
can happen here.
Everybody
is so selfish.
If
given the choice, I would be first person to run away from here.
I
cannot tolerate like this.
Things
are becoming impossible.
My
dreams are horrifying.
The
days of honesty/sincerity/hard work have gone.
Why
don’t others do it?
I
have been cheated.
I
am not of this type.
There
is another interesting phenomenon termed as ‘Group Stress’ by the
psychoanalysts. A set of people such as family, a social group or an entire
nation may be stressed due to single stimulus. (Khanna, 1998) .Someone falling
sick in the family, riots or war can wage a stress situation, where everybody
starts showing signs of irritation, anxiety and impatience. The situation may
even lead to panic. Another interesting point to note that stress is harmful
not only to the affected person but also to those around interacting with the
stressed person. The vibes radiating are contiguous and unhealthier than passive
smoking.
Constant
association with the stressed person aggravates overall stress (Khanna, 1998).
The stress generating person may be the boss, the co-worker, spouse, teenage
son or daughter, live-in maid or a teacher. There are number of incidences where
calm and cool persons have become tense and irritated because of their
association with a stressed associate.
Positive
stress or eustress is good for personal growth as it enhances energy to fight
back for growth and development. There is only hair line difference between a
positive and negative stress. Positive stress such as challenges turn into
negative one such as depressions as soon the pressure on personal demands
increases. It is important to remember that emotions like depressions do not
happen to you. You don’t catch depression like cold or fever. You create it by
efforts, like every other result in your life. Stress is the unique in the
category of diseases. It has no biological carrier such as germ or virus, yet
it is worse than an epidemic when negatively poised. You know that modern high
paced, mechanical life put immense strain on human system. But, can the human
being take more and more worry, strain and tension, beyond a limit- without
cracking up? Remaining stress free is impossible. Health implications of
negative stressors are severe. To your utmost surprise it triggers such low
profile early indicators like change in appetite, headache, anger, etc. those
are never considered as intrinsic potential danger to future life and slowly
turn into cancers, ulcers, heart attack, etc.
Common
stress reactions are emotional and behavioural changes like increased
irritability, anger, hostility and disgust, anxiety, worry, impatience and
depression or definite bodily reactions like tremors, increased muscle tension,
palpitation, wet hands and feet, tired limbs and numbness, difficulty in
breathing and loss of sleep or excess sleep (Bhamgara, 1966; Rose, 2007).
In
acute stress, panic is produced accompanied by intense anxiety. One may feel
dizzy, chocked and breathless; experience trembling, fast beating of the heart,
chest tightness and pain. There could be abdominal gripping, nausea, warmth
with blood rushing to the face and head, heat radiating from every part of the
body followed by sudden sweating and chill. It may further lead to disease like
insomnia, bulimia or anorexia, darkening of skin, hair loss or problems related
to menses in women (Rose, 2007).
Taken
together, increasing stress and decreasing resistance to it lead to increase in
psycho-emotional tensions and organic diseases. Dr. Bhamgara conducted
researches for several years and revealed that the percentage of times that
physicians find physical complaints to be emotionally induced, either entirely
or partly. Some related data is shown in the table.
Ailments
|
% of time the ailment was emotionally induced
|
Skin rash
|
30%
|
Ulcer-like stomach-ache
|
50%
|
Gall-stone like pain
|
50%
|
Constipation
|
75%
|
Pain at the nap of the neck
|
70%
|
Dizziness
|
80%
|
Headache
|
80%
|
Flatulence
|
90%
|
Fatigue
|
90%
|
It
would be correct to assume that in 50% of all acute as well as chronic
ailments, the psycho-emotional factors do play vital role. The percentage is
higher in chronic cases. Chronic stress does more damage. It shows up as
numerous minor or major ailments in addition to the subjective symptoms as
expressed by the individual. S/he could have diarrhoea, chronic backache,
sexual dysfunction, twitches and tinglings, patchy baldness (alopecia areata),
recurrent attack of itching and weal, breathlessness and wheezing, skin
problems like eczema, altered pigmentation, high blood, chest pain and heart
diseases, obesity, diabetes, ulcers and auto immune disorders (Bhamgara, 1997; Khanna,
1998).
You
can come out easily with the common stress situations as our body is naturally
prepared to receive them but it is rather difficult to come out of acute or
chronic stress stages because to reach that stage the body has undergone severe
changes in the body chemistry. Repeated traumatic stress takes a chronic state
that totally alters the body reactions and shatters a person’s behavioural
stability and physical, mental and emotional health status. Therefore one must
take guard against falling victim of the stress and s/he must train him/herself
in such a way that the balance remains in the internal mechanism. Stress is a
vicious cycle, which leads the person to more and more stressful state. One has
to guard against becoming victim of the situation, person or event. It takes
the body years to adapt particular body chemistry and to make stress boon, you
need to change the body chemistry at first place. It may not be straightforward
that you start doing exercises or yoga or pranayam or meditation and things get
instantaneously overhauled. It takes years to apply correction and get the right
result. You need to constantly watch the damaging attitudes and slowly but
firmly change them one by one. Peace, solace, passion, happiness, courage,
liveliness, etc. are the potent indicators of positive and charged emotional
body. The positive change in thinking, attitude and belief system ultimately
helps the emotional body to prepare to cope up from stressful situations. It
certainly requires a comprehensive plan to manage oneself well to come out of
dis-ease state. The plan needs to be prepared under able guidance and
implemented with full commitment and passion may only work. Often one tip which
saves us from many confrontations is “to live in present”. One has to adapt
suitable stress management strategy to remain fit and healthy. The bottom-line of
this article is “one who manages himself/herself well can manage anything
peacefully and without taking stress to heart and without the future being
ravaged and devastated by the stress”.
Reference:
1.
Channer Philip & Hope Tina
(2001); Emotional Impact – Passionate Leaders and Corporate Transformation,
PALGRAVE, New York, pp 5-13.
2.
Cooper, C. L., & Cartwright, S.
(1994). Healthy mind; healthy organization: A proactive approach to
occupational stress. Human Relations, 47, pp 455-471.
3.
Cooper, C.L. (1981). The Stress
Check. Prentice-Hall: London.
4.
Hayes, N. (1994). Foundations of
Psychology. Routledge: London.
5.
Cooper C L, Bramwell S S (1998), The
Self-Reported Well-Being of Employees Facing Organizational Change: Effects of
an Intervention’, Occupational Medicine, Vol. 48, No. 6, pp 361-368
6.
Khanna, Girija (1998); All about
coping with Stress; Vikas Publishing, New Delhi. pp 13-22, 55-58.
7.
Pestonjee, D.M.; Pareek Udai;
Agrawal, Rita (1999); (eg. Bhamgara) Studies in stress and its management;
Oxford & IBH Publishing, New Delhi, pp-292
8.
Alexander, Rose (2007); http://www.lifescript.com/Soul/Self/Well-being/Illnesses_Caused_By_Stress.aspx
9.
Sutherland V J, Cooper C L (1993).
‘Identifying Distress Among General Practitioners: Predictors of Psychological
Ill- Health and Job Dissatisfaction’, Social Science Medicine, Vol. 37,
No. 5, pp. 575-581
10. Peiffer Vera (1996).
Thorsons Principles of stress management, HarperCollins Publishers, London, pp
16-39
11. Steve
Sharpely(1996); Stress News; July 96, Vol. 3 No. 6
12. Spielberger,
C.D; Vagg, P. R; (1998); Measuring Occupational Stress: The Job Survey;
Occupational Stress: A handbook (eds R. Crandall, P. Perrewe); pp 51-69
13. Verma,
Peeyush; Ph.D. thesis on Occupational Stress among R&D Professionals in
the selected organisations in M.P.; Barkatullah University, 2004
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