Stress: Grown Menace- Instilling wisdom

Stress: Grown Menace- Instilling wisdom

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