Coping with Stress in Middle and Late

Lesson 5
Adolescence

Stress is the condition that individual may feel when he/she is struggling to accept
changes with physical, mental, and emotional responses. It may give tension which will lead
into various responses such as anger, frustration, and nervousness. You can experience stress
because of what the environment, situation, body and thought produced.
Stress is a term that has been linked to varied concepts and operations. For some
researchers it is stimulus, for others it is an inferred inner state and for still others it is an
observable response to stimulus or situation. Thus, the use of the term is somewhat
hazardous because of the lack of consensus that prevails in stress research. (Dohrenwend &
Dohrenwend, 1974).
Some other researchers prefer to use the term stressor to refer to events that can
cause stress, the organism’s biological and behavioral response to the stressor (Davison &
Neale, 1994, p.191)
To solve the problem, some researchers suggest to be more precise in our usage of
stress we must use stressor when talking about a cause of stress and the word stress when
talking about the response to stressor (Holmes, 1994, p.39).

Stress as Stimulus, Response and Stimuli

Stress as Stimulus
Aside from being a reaction (or response) stress is also a stimulus as well as a
relational condition between person and the situation they are in (Feist and Rosenberg 2012)
-It is caused by situations that may be life threatening or life changing, such as
separation, moving into a new home, or having a new job. These situations or events are
often called stressors.

Stress as Response
It is the way the body reacts to challenging situations. This involves the interaction
between the hormones, glands, and nervous system where the adrenalin glands drive the
production of cortisol or better known as “Stress hormones”
To consider stress as a response to environmental conditions, defined on the basis
of such diverse criteria as emotional upset, deterioration of performance, or physiological
changes such as increased skin conductance or increases in the levels of certain hormones
(Apply & Trumball, 1967).

Stress as Relational
When a person is experiencing stress takes a step back to look at the situation that
is causing the stress and reflect on it.
Stress, then, is determined by person-environment fit. When a person’s resources
are more than adequate to deal with a difficult situation, he or she may feel little stress.
When the individual perceives that his or her resources will probably be sufficient to deal with
the event but only at the cost of great effort, he or she may feel a moderate amount of stress.
When the individual perceives that his or her resources will probably not suffice to meet an
environmental stressor, he or she may experience a great deal of stress. Stress, then, results
from the process of appraising events (as harmful, threatening or challenging), of assessing
potential responses, and of responding to those events (Lazarus & Folkeman, 1984, p.19;
Taylor, 1999, p.169).

Momentary vs. Lasting Stress

Sometimes a stressful situation just lasts a moment — like getting through a school
play audition or making the foul shot that could win the game.
But life also can bring situations that might keep us stressed for a few days, weeks,
or months. Even if we're not always thinking about this stress, it can be like a background
soundtrack playing in our lives.
 If you're like most people, you've faced these kinds of lasting stressful situations.
Feeling unprepared or unhappy about the situation increases the stress. Stressful situations
can wear us down over time. Finding ways to deal with them can help us grow strong.

What is Stress?

Stress is simple a reaction to an input that disturbs our physical and mental balance. It is ever
present in everyone’s life. You are not exempted to experience this emotion.
A stressful occasions and events may activate the responses, causing hormones such as
adrenalin and cortisol better known as “stress hormone” surge through the body. This may
give negative reactions and make the person depressed.
On the other hand, when a person felt excessive desirable moment and beyond enjoyable
experiences, these positive situations may also cause negative effect of tension and anxiety.
For instance, the wedding, it may bring stress since this could bring the situation into above
normal emotion.
Since there are variety of emotions one could experience-whether in their private life or their
work place, these different events from environment bring varied changes in your emotions.
These emotions can be classified in three types – according to Lazarus & Cohen: Major
changes, often cataclysmic, affecting large numbers of persons, major changes affecting one
or a few persons, and daily hassles. (Lazarus & Folkman 1984, p.12).

Different things cause stress in different people. Some of the things students
commonly cite as causes of stress include:
 examinations
 deadlines
 returning to study
 pressure of combining paid work and study
 difficulty in organizing work
 poor time management
 leaving assignments to the last minute
 out of control debts
 overcrowding
 noise
 adjusting to life in a new environment or even country
 difficulties with personal relationships (e.g. splitting up)
 balancing the demands of a family with studying
 parents or problems at home

There are two types of stress, the “eustress”, which is term for positive stress and
“distress” which refers to negative stress. Dr. Lazarus, building on Dr. Selye’s work

EUSTRESS as positive stress has its characteristics:

 motivates, focuses energy
 is perceived as within our coping abilities
 feels exciting
 improves performance
 is a short-term

Examples of positive personal stressors include:

Receiving a promotion or raise at work
Starting a new job
Marriage
Buying a home
Having a child
Moving
Taking vacation
Holiday season
Retiring
Taking educational classes
Learning new hobby

DISTRESS as negative stress has its characteristics

 causes anxiety or concern
 can be short- or long term
 is perceived as outside of our coping abilities
 feels unpleasant
 decrease performance
 can lead to mental and physical problem

Examples of negative personal stressors include:

The death of spouse, and family members
Filing divorce
Losing contacts with someone
Hospitalization
Injury or illness
Being abused or neglected
Separation from spouse or committed relationship partner
Conflict in interpersonal relationship
Bankruptcy/ money problem
Unemployment
Sleep problem
Children’s problem at school
Legal problem