Key words on the topic: read, translate, train the pronunciation, memorize.
Stress, distress, stressor, response, adjustment, adaptation, external, internal, stress-inducing factors, stimulus, somatic symptoms, anxiety, aversive state, adaptation, stress management programs.
2. Read the text:
Stress is the body's reaction to a change that requires a physical, mental or emotional adjustment or response. Hans Selye introduced the term stress from physics and engineering and defined it as "mutual actions of forces that take place across any section of the body, physical or psychological". He also found typical and constant psychological and physical responses to the adverse situations and called these responses the general adaptation (adjustment) or stress syndrome. He discovered that these processes, which were adaptive and normal for the organism in warding off stress, could become much like illnesses. That is, the adaptive processes, if they were excessive, could damage the body. This observation, then, was the beginning of an understanding of why stress, really overstress, can be harmful.
Stress in humans results from interactions between persons and their environment that are perceived as straining or exceeding their adaptive capacities and threatening their well-being. The element of perception indicates that human stress responses reflect differences in personality, as well as differences in physical strength or general health.
In general, stress is related to both external and internal factors. External factors include the physical environment, including your job, your relationships with others, your home, and all the situations, challenges, difficulties, and expectations you're confronted with on a daily basis. Internal factors determine your body's ability to respond to, and deal with, the external stress-inducing factors. Internal factors which influence your ability to handle stress include your nutritional status, overall health and fitness levels, emotional well-being, and the amount of sleep and rest you get.
Stress can be caused by any type of physical or emotional stimulus or situation. Often, people speak of different types of stress such as work stress, relationship stress, or parenting stress. Some kinds of stress may be related to specific stages of life such as aging, pregnancy, the teen years, or the menopausal transition. Despite its source, any type of stress can become unmanageable or overwhelming. The following are risk factors for uncontrollable stress: social and financial problems, medical illness, lack of social support networks and family history of stress or family discord.
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Excess stress can manifest itself in a variety of emotional, behavioral, and even physical symptoms, and the symptoms of stress vary enormously among different individuals. Common somatic (physical) symptoms include sleep disturbances, muscle tension, muscle aches, headache, gastrointestinal disturbances, and fatigue. Emotional and behavioral symptoms that can accompany excess stress include nervousness, anxiety, changes in eating habits including overeating, loss of enthusiasm or energy, and mood changes, like irritability and depression.It is also known that people under stress have a greater tendency to engage in unhealthy behaviors, such as excessive use or abuse of alcohol and drugs, cigarette smoking, and making poor exercise and nutritional choices, than their less-stressed counterparts. These unhealthy behaviors can further increase the severity of symptoms related to stress, often leading to a "vicious cycle" of symptoms and unhealthy behaviors.
Because of the overabundance of stress in our modern lives, we usually think of stress as a negative experience, but from a biological point of view, stress can be a neutral, negative, or positive experience. In small doses, stressors can help give us increased energy and alertness, even helping to keep us focused on the problem at hand. This type of stress is good. People may refer to the experience of this type of stress as feeling "pumped" or "wired". But there is other, "bad" type of stress, which is called distress. Distress is an aversive, negative state in which coping and adaptation processes fail to return an organism to physiological and/or psychological homeostasis. Progression into the maladaptive state may be due to a severe or prolonged stressor or multiple cumulative stressful insults with deleterious effects on the organism’s welfare.
Recent advances in the understanding of many complex connections between the human mind and body have produced a variety of mainstream approaches to stress-related illness. Present treatment may include one or more of the following:
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Medications. These may include drugs to control blood pressure or other physical symptoms of stress, as well as drugs that affect the patient's mood (tranquilizers or antidepressants).
Stress management programs. These may be either individual or group treatments, and usually involve analysis of the stressors in the patient's life. They often focus on job or workplace-related stress.
Behavioral approaches. These strategies include relaxation techniques, breathing exercises, and physical exercise programs including walking.
Massage. Therapeutic massage relieves stress by relaxing the large groups of muscles in the back, neck, arms, and legs.
Cognitive therapy. These approaches teach patients to reframe or mentally reinterpret the stressors in their lives in order to modify the body's physical reactions.
Meditation and associated spiritual or religious practices. Recent studies have found positive correlations between these practices and stress hardiness.
You can take steps to prevent stress in your life.
· Set realistic goals and limits for yourself.
· Put things into perspective and try not to get upset about insignificant or relatively unimportant matters.
· Take stress-management, time-management, or anger-management classes.
· Find activities that you enjoy and set aside time to participate in them on a regular basis.
· Participate in regular physical exercise.
· Consume a healthy diet.
3. Answer the following questions:
a) How can you define stress according to Hans Selye ?
b) What does stress result from?
c) In general stress is related to both external and internal factors, isn’t it?
d) Can adaptive processes damage the body?
e) What are common somatic symptoms?
f) How can stress manifest itself?
g) What is the definition of distress?
h) What promoted a variety of mainstream approaches to stress –related illness?
i) Is it possible to prevent stress in our life?
j) What do you know about stress-management programs?
4. Mark these statements TRUE (T) or FALSE (F):
a) Stress refers to a condition and stressor – to the stimulus causing it.
b) The term stress was introduced by H.Selye in the 1930s.
c) Excessive adaptation processes can damage the body.
d) Social and financial problems aren’t risk ones for uncontrolled stress.
e) Symptoms of stress are the same.
f) From a biological point of view stress can be neutral, positive, negative.
g) Stressors can’ give us alertness.
h) Distress is a negative state in which coping fails.
i) Drugs can’t affect the patient’s mood.
j) It’s possible to cope with stress.
UNIT 10.
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