Stress. For most of us we hear this word our thoughts are directed towards the things that we stress over or our moments of distress. Well we can experience stress from those moments of distress, but also come from good events. The emotions that cause stress, anxiety and excitement are very similar. The real difference between the two is that when we feel anxiety we sense danger, and when excited we don’t sense danger but our bodies have the same basic response. This response is an accelerated heart rate, more breathing and adrenaline begins to pump through the body. Both feelings are completely natural, and are beneficial.
How is anxiety beneficial? Without anxiety we wouldn’t sense danger. When we feel in danger we tend to have three certain responses; flight, fight or freeze. Freeze is the least talked about even though it is the most common, 60% of Americans freeze as an initial response. To freeze is to literally stop just like a deer in the headlights. In the moment of pause our body does several things; the limbic system or instincts in our brain kick in while the front lobe or our logic and thinking decreases in importance; are body prepares for fight or flight by having an increased heart rate and breathing, and maybe more tension in the muscles if we are getting ready to fight. In this sense anxiety is a good thing because it helps us sense and prepare for danger. Anxiety only becomes a problem when we begin to sense anxiety or danger when we aren’t actually in a dangerous situation.
If anxiety can be beneficial does that mean stress is too? Yes, if handled correctly stress can strengthen us. A professor compared personal this and stress put on our bones. Our bones are constantly changing, so if we do an activity that causes stress on a certain portion of our body the bones will slowly become strong to be more prepared to handle the stress put on them. The opposite is also true, astronauts have the problem of having no stress put on their bodies for a long period of time. A movie explanation is disney’s “Wall-E”. The humans in that movie had zero body stress for generations resulting in the loss of nearly all their bone structure. That is obviously an extreme idea but the movie made a point about body stress. Our bodies and mind can have a similar effect from non physical stress, not that our bones would get stronger or weaker from it, but our minds and emotional strength can get better.
Stress can affect us personally and it even has effects on the family scale. In a family there are loads of ways for both positive and negative stressors or stressing events to occur. Stressing events that have a permanent or heavy impact on families is called a crisis. Crisis can be a variety of events from losing a family member to smaller events that impact the family in some way. The way a crisis impacts a family can be very different for each family even if the events are similar. A family doesn't have to be negatively affected by crisis some return to a similar state then before and some bounce back to become even better and closer than before the event.
A social science researcher came up with a simple model to help get a base understanding for what a stressor event is and how it happens. Now stress is no simple matter but this model is a starter. The ABCX model is a stress equation, A + B + C = X. A is the actual event, B represents both the response and resources, C is for Cognition or how we define the situation, and X is the total experience or outcome of the event. This is the simple version, later the creator of this model created a double version which represents the true complexity of stress and family crisis. Learning to use the ABCX model a family can break down events and learn to create plans or be better prepared for future family crises.
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