Stress and Life Change

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Stress and Life Change Within this essay the term stress will be discussed and how life changes can affect people’s lives causing a person to feel stressed. Seiye (1956) defines stress as “The individual’s physchophysiological response, mediated largely by the autonomic nervous system and the endocrine system, to any demands made on the individual.” (Gross 2001) p174 The essay will also cover and explore the evolutionary perspective focusing on how stress affects the sympathetic state and the endocrine system, and how primary and secondary appraisal fits in with this; it will also discuss how divorce, as a major life, change can have both positive and negative outcomes. Stress is something that can be termed differently by each individual, what it may mean to one person, it may mean something different to another, it could be that it is the meaning that an individual attaches to an experience rather that the experience itself, that causes one to feel stressed. Stress can also be a good thing, it can be what drives us to get out of bed each day and carry out daily routines. Lack of stress, termed as ‘distress’ can cause lack of motivation and boredom, which can have a negative effect on life and can lead to many other problems such as alcohol or drug abuse. On the other hand too much stress can have a bad impact on a person’s health, leading to headaches, high blood pressure it can also affect the immune system and in extreme cases possibly stroke and heart disease. Anxiety caused from stress can make a person feel irritable and angry, or they may become subdued this may lead to negative relationships at home or at work. It is thought that too much stress can easily lead to depression which can then have an impact on the way a person perceives stressful situations, thus having more stress to cope with In primary appraisal it is said that our first reaction is
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