Understanding Stress

Types of Stress:

Positive Stress: Can occur during happy events like starting a new job or getting married.
Acute Stress: Short-term stress from one-off events, e.g., locking keys in the car.
Chronic Stress: Long-term stress from ongoing stressors like financial issues, abusive relationships, poverty, and discrimination.

Acute stress triggers the HPA (Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenocortical) Axis:
- Hormones released: adrenaline and cortisol.
- Initiates the "fight or flight" response.
- Increases blood sugar, blood flow, and metabolism.
Chronic stress:
- Can cause persistently high cortisol levels.
- Associated with health issues like heart disease, autoimmune disorders, anxiety, and depression.
- Impacts the immune system, reducing white blood cell production, impairing healing and infection resistance.

Dental Students Experiment:
- Students healed slower during exam stress than during a vacation.
Studies link chronic stress with slower recovery from surgery and other wounds.
Stress correlates with increased respiratory infections, especially in lower socioeconomic classes.
Chronic stress can accelerate aging by affecting telomeres in DNA.

Resolution Strategies:
- Best solution: eliminate chronic stress.
- Alternatives: meditation, relaxation therapy, rethinking stress as a challenge rather than a threat.
- Helping others can reduce stress-related health impacts.
Helping Others:
- Study: Older adults helping others had better survival rates despite having high stress.

Chronic stress is harmful, but managing perception and helping others can mitigate effects.

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