Cultural aspects of stress

Abstract

Publisher Summary Stress represents the generalized response of an organism to environmental demands. It is an inherent physiological mechanism that prepares the organism for action, and which comes into play when demands are placed on it. Not all stress is harmful to the organism: at a moderate level (eustress), it has a protective and adaptive function. At a higher level (dystress), the stress response can cause pathological changes and even death. The actual environmental influence—whether physical, psychological, or sociocultural—that produces stress, is termed a stressor. The chapter describes the sequence of events whereby an organism responds to a stressor as the general adaptation syndrome (GAS). This usually has three stages: (1) the alarm reaction, whereby the organism becomes aware of a specific noxious stimulus; (2) the stage of resistance or adaptation in which the organism recovers to a functional level superior to that before it is stressed; and (3) the stage of exhaustion, where the recovery processes, under the continuing assault of stressors, are no longer able to cope and to restore homeostasis. In this final stage, the physiological changes that have taken place in the organism now become pathological to it, and disease or death results.