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Stress and Its Role in Our Life

Categories: Stress Stress Management Trauma

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Published: May 7, 2019

Words: 2555 | Pages: 6 | 13 min read

Works Cited

American Psychological Association. (2019). Stress effects on the body. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/topics/stress/body
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.). Coping with stress. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/managing-stress-anxiety.html
Hansen, N. (2014). The impact of stress on the immune system. Immunology, 144(2), 147-156.
Knowlton, S. (n.d.). The positive effects of stress on the body. Retrieved from https://www.livestrong.com/article/104523-positive-effects-stress-body/
McLeod, S. (2010). Stress and the immune system. Simply Psychology. Retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/stress-immune.html
Mills, N. (n.d.). Mental effects of stress. Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/stress-effects-on-the-body-4124300
Segal, J. (2016). Understanding stress. HelpGuide. Retrieved from https://www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/stress-symptoms-signs-and-causes.htm
Simon, H. (2016). How stress affects your body. Retrieved from https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/understanding-the-stress-response
Stages of chronic stress. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://extension.illinois.edu/stress/stages.cfm
Top ten causes of stress. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.stress.org/top-ten-causes-of-stress

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Essays About Stress: 5 Examples and 7 Helpful Prompts

Stress deals with various sensitive matters and is a popular topic. See our top examples of essays about stress and prompts to assist in your writing.

Stress is a poison that gradually affects a person’s mental and physical health. It’s a common problem in all aspects of life, with money being the top stressor. There’s also a spectrum of stress, but chronic stress is the most dangerous of all types and levels. It can lead to health problems such as high blood pressure, anxiety disorders, heart disease, and more.

5 Essay Examples

1. post-traumatic stress disorder and substance use disorders by anonymous on ivypanda.com, 2. coping up with stress by anonymous on gradesfixer.com, 3. stress management: how stress can cause mental illness and how to treat it by anonymous on papersowl.com, 4. assessing the personal stress levels by anonymous on ivypanda.com, 5. sources of stress in youths by anonymous on gradesfixer.com, 1. what is stress, 2. good stress vs. bad stress, 3. how stress can affect our daily lives, 4. the impact of stress on children, 5. what is financial stress, 6. the importance of stress management, 7. stress and health problems.

“…the self-medication hypothesis… is supportive to healthcare as it offers a clear pathway to sufferers from existing addiction, which, in turn, enhances the bond between specialists and victims, it improves access to dosages, and it may also decrease the cost of a prescribed drug.”

In this essay, the writer investigates the leading causes of stress and substance abuse resulting from a disorder. They note that stress, anxiety, and depression often develop after divorce, widowhood, disasters, and other traumatic events.

To show the relationship between post-traumatic stress disorder and substance use, the author adds statistics and situations in which people who have gone through a separation or sexual abuse utilize self-medication, drugs, and alcohol to forget what happened to them. However, this brief escapes lead to addiction. Ultimately, the writer believes that developing stress, anxiety, and depression coping alternatives will reduce the number of people addicted to substances.

Do you want to write about depression? Check out our guide on how to write essays about depression .

“Stress coping and management is essential to have a healthy life. We need to manage stress effectively to avoid the side effects that can arise if not managed effectively. Let’s prioritize on our tasks, manage a healthy lifestyle, have time for fun and for one another, and practice the 4A’s of stress management to have a stress free life.”

This essay shares that stress can be beneficial as it teaches a person to handle difficult situations. However, stress becomes dangerous when it starts to control someone’s life. That’s why it’s vital to manage stress depending on its severity.

To effectively cope with stress, the author suggests having a balanced diet, exercising regularly, and writing in journals. They also mention the importance of talking to a professional and identifying and avoiding the primary source of stress.

“When people get stressed out, they try many coping mechanisms, and that usually helps a decent amount, however for some, the stress can be too overwhelming. That being said, stress is seen to have a very significant link to mental illness, more specifically, schizophrenia.”

In this essay, the author contends that stress is the root cause of some mental illnesses like schizophrenia. To support the claim, the author uses a real-life situation and shows the development of the disease, originating from the simple stress of moving and working in the city.

The essay presents the different levels of schizophrenia and its symptoms. Then, after offering various sources, the author concludes that the most common way to treat stress and schizophrenia is having someone to spend time with and get therapy. You might also be interested in these essays about leadership .

“… A proper assessment of an individual’s stress levels is a critical factor in their well-being. Physiological and psychological aspects of intense pressure should be carefully studied and checked. Using corresponding methods and tools can be of significant help for the person, providing them with a clear understanding of the problems encountered.”

In this essay, the author discusses tools that help assess stress levels and effective strategies for combating stress. They use the “Symptoms of Stress Methodology” from Stress Management for Life: A Research-Based Experiential Approach and the “Ardell Wellness Stress Test” to determine stress levels and evaluate physiological symptoms. These symptoms assist in constructing effective ways to release stress, including participating in PTSD therapies and getting a service dog.

“Early exposure to stress not only affects children’s social and mental development during their formative years, it also can increase the risk of alcoholism, illicit drug use, adult depression, anxiety, and even heart disease much later in life.”

In this essay, the writer proves that stress can affect people of all ages and genders. However, the author focuses on young people and how quickly it appears in their adult life. According to the author, technostress, the fear of missing out, lack of personal space, and high expectations are the common causes of stress in youths.

The author strongly discourages using drugs, cigarettes, and alcohol to relieve stress. Instead, they recommend reducing stress by taking regular breaks, replacing big life goals with smaller, more attainable goals, being open and sharing problems with others, and getting professional help.

7 Writing Prompts for Essays About Stress

Stress is a person’s emotional response to pressure to meet standards, commitments, and responsibilities. It usually occurs in a situation or an outcome we fail to manage or control. In your essay, explain what stress is all about and why it’s essential to understand this reaction. Use this prompt to help your readers know the early signs of stress. Then, add ways stress can be managed and avoided, so it doesn’t interfere with daily activities.

Although stress is often connected with bad instances, there’s also “good stress,” or eustress. Eustress pertains to a positive response to a stressor. For example, it happens when one is excited or ecstatic. Meanwhile, bad stress, or “distress,” negatively affects your mental and physical well-being.

Consider using this prompt to compare and contrast the good and bad stress that people usually experience. Then, give real-life examples and suggest how your readers can effectively handle both eustress and distress.

The effects of stress vary in degree and duration. For example, stress can prevent us from functioning properly at work, home, or anywhere else. It can also affect our relationships with others and with ourselves.

To make your essay relatable, share a personal experience on how stress affects your life. You can also interview others in various professions and statuses to demonstrate the range of which stress affects different individuals.

Stress does not only occur among adults or teenagers. Children can also experience stress at a young age. For instance, a child can succumb to the pressure of adapting to a new environment, getting bullied, and sometimes being separated from loved ones. These can lead to anxiety, trust issues, and depression.

Identify and discuss these factors and why it affects young children. Include recent statistics that show the number of children experiencing stress and additional relevant citations to make your essay credible.

The most recent survey found that 65% of Americans worry about money and the economy’s decline. Pick this prompt to make your essay relevant and informative. Delve into what financial stress is and discuss its typical causes and effects. Then, add the latest percentage of people who experience financial stress and address why it’s a pressing issue.

Stress management offers various strategies to battle stress. First, explain to your readers the importance and effectiveness of proper stress management. Then, include proven and tested methods commonly used to treat stress. You can also share the strategies that have worked for you to persuade your readers that stress management is effective.

Essays About Stress: Stress and health problems

Stress causes several physical and mental health problems. Use this prompt to show the importance of treating stress before it worsens and affects a person’s welfare. Include research findings from reliable sources and real-life experiences where someone has damaged their health because of stress. If you’re looking for more ideas, check out our essays about bullying topic guide !

Maria Caballero is a freelance writer who has been writing since high school. She believes that to be a writer doesn't only refer to excellent syntax and semantics but also knowing how to weave words together to communicate to any reader effectively.

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Essay on Stress In Life

Students are often asked to write an essay on Stress In Life in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Stress In Life

What is stress.

Stress is when you feel under too much pressure from something in your life. It’s like carrying a very heavy backpack that makes you tired and unhappy. Everyone, from kids to adults, can feel stressed at times.

Causes of Stress

Stress can come from many places. School work, problems with friends, and even family issues can make you feel stressed. It’s like having too many tasks to do and not enough time to do them.

Effects of Stress

When you’re stressed, you might feel sad, angry, or even get headaches. It’s like your body’s way of telling you it’s not happy with what’s going on.

Dealing with Stress

To deal with stress, you can talk to someone you trust, take breaks, or do things you enjoy. It’s like putting down the heavy backpack for a while to rest and feel better.

250 Words Essay on Stress In Life

Stress is when you feel worried or uncomfortable because of too much pressure or problems in life. Imagine you have a big test coming up, and you are scared about how well you will do. That feeling of being scared or worried is stress. Everyone, from kids to adults, experiences stress at some point in their lives.

There are many reasons why people feel stressed. For kids and teenagers, homework, exams, and busy schedules can be stressful. For adults, work, taking care of their family, or money problems might cause stress. Sometimes, even small things like losing your keys can make you feel stressed.

Stress can affect your body and your feelings. You might get headaches, feel tired, or have trouble sleeping. It can also make you feel sad, angry, or frustrated. If stress lasts for a long time, it can make it hard to concentrate or enjoy life.

The good news is that there are ways to deal with stress. Talking to someone you trust about your feelings can help a lot. Taking breaks, playing, and doing things you enjoy can also reduce stress. Learning how to manage your time and not taking on too much can prevent stress from building up.

In conclusion, stress is a normal part of life, but it’s important to learn how to handle it. By understanding what causes stress and knowing how to deal with it, you can feel better and enjoy life more.

500 Words Essay on Stress In Life

Stress and its impact on our lives.

Stress is a natural reaction of the body to challenges and demands. It can come from anything that disrupts our physical or mental balance. While stress can be helpful in some situations, such as when it motivates us to study for an exam or meet a deadline, chronic stress can have negative effects on our health and well-being.

There are many potential causes of stress, including:

1. Work and School: Work and school can be major sources of stress, especially when we feel overwhelmed by our responsibilities or have difficulty meeting expectations. 2. Relationships: Problems with family, friends, or romantic partners can be a significant source of stress. 3. Financial Problems: Money worries can be very stressful, especially when we are struggling to make ends meet. 4. Health Problems: Dealing with a serious illness or injury can be incredibly stressful, both for the person affected and for their loved ones. 5. Major Life Changes: Life transitions, such as moving, getting married, or having a baby, can be exciting but also stressful.

Chronic stress can have a wide range of negative effects on our health and well-being, including:

1. Physical Health: Stress can lead to a variety of physical health problems, such as headaches, stomach problems, heart disease, and weight gain. 2. Mental Health: Stress can also contribute to mental health problems, such as anxiety, depression, and insomnia. 3. Cognitive Function: Stress can impair our ability to concentrate, remember, and make decisions. 4. Behavior: Stress can lead to unhealthy behaviors, such as smoking, drinking alcohol, or overeating. 5. Relationships: Stress can also strain our relationships with family, friends, and colleagues.

Managing Stress

There are many things we can do to help manage stress, including:

1. Exercise: Regular physical activity can help reduce stress levels and improve our mood. 2. Relaxation Techniques: Practices such as deep breathing, meditation, and yoga can help us relax and reduce stress. 3. Healthy Diet: Eating a balanced diet can help us maintain our energy levels and cope with stress better. 4. Adequate Sleep: Getting enough sleep is essential for both physical and mental health and can help us better manage stress. 5. Time Management: Learning to manage our time effectively can help us avoid feeling overwhelmed and reduce stress. 6. Social Support: Talking to friends, family, or a therapist can help us process our feelings and cope with stress.

Stress is a normal part of life, but chronic stress can have negative effects on our health and well-being. By understanding the causes and effects of stress and learning to manage it effectively, we can improve our overall health and well-being.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

Essay on Stress Impact On Health
Essay on Stress During Pandemic
Essay on Stress And Anxiety

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by clicking here .

Happy studying!

Life Stress and Health: A Review of Conceptual Issues and Recent Findings

George m. slavich.

1 Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology and Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Life stress is a central construct in many models of human health and disease. The present article reviews research on stress and health, with a focus on (a) how life stress has been conceptualized and measured over time, (b) recent evidence linking stress and disease, and (c) mechanisms that might underlie these effects. Emerging from this body of work is evidence that stress is involved in the development, maintenance, or exacerbation of several mental and physical health conditions, including asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, anxiety disorders, depression, cardiovascular disease, chronic pain, human immunodeficiency virus/AIDS, stroke, and certain types of cancer. Stress has also been implicated in accelerated biological aging and premature mortality. These effects have been studied most commonly using self-report checklist measures of life stress exposure, although interview-based approaches provide a more comprehensive assessment of individuals’ exposure to stress. Most recently, online systems like the Stress and Adversity Inventory (STRAIN) have been developed for assessing lifetime stress exposure, and such systems may provide important new information to help advance our understanding of how stressors occurring over the life course get embedded in the brain and body to affect lifespan health.

The notion that psychological stress can affect mental and physical health is extremely popular nowadays. Indeed, one can hardly read the news without seeing a new article detailing the deleterious effects that stress has on health or describing how individuals can better cope with stress to reduce their disease risk, enhance their well-being, and realize their “full potential.” The television provides little relief in this regard. There, people hear about new psychopharmacological, herbal, and behavioral remedies that promise to reduce their stress levels and risk for a variety of health conditions, some of which are well known (e.g., chronic pain, depression) and others of which were recently invented (e.g., “Low T” [testosterone]).

This tremendous interest in stress makes sense given the fundamental drive that humans have to better understand life’s circumstances and factors that ultimately impact survival. At the same time, viewing stress as an obvious trigger of disease—or as a construct that has a face-valid, commonly agreed upon definition—has led to substantial complication and confusion. Even in the scientific literature on stress and health, the construct of “stress” is frequently described in different ways and often with little detail or specificity. Likewise, although it has long been assumed that stress affects health, exactly how stress gets “under the skin” to promote disease has remained largely unknown. This has occurred in part because scientists have only recently developed the tools that are necessary to assess biological processes that link experiences of stress with disease pathogenesis.

The purpose of this article is to briefly review contemporary ideas and research on stress and health. First, I examine some ways in which stress has been conceptualized and defined over the years. Second, I describe self-report and interview-based instruments that have been developed to assess life stress exposure. Third, I summarize recent findings linking stress and health and mechanisms that might underlie these effects. Fourth, I highlight the emerging focus on examining associations between lifetime stress exposure and health. Finally, I introduce some techniques that instructors can use to teach students about stress and health.

Historical Perspectives on Stress

The belief that daily life can be filled with persistent problems and unrelenting challenges goes back centuries. In Greek mythology, for example, Sisyphus is seen pushing a boulder up a mountain repeatedly, day after day, only to have it roll back down just before he gets to the top ( Camus, 1955 ). The metaphor is physical but conjures up modern images of finishing a long list of tasks, only to be given more by your boss, or cleaning out your e-mail inbox, only to wake up to 15 new messages the next morning. In more recent times, Sir Clifford Allbutt (1895) wrote about how the “whirl of the railway, the pelting of telegrams, the strife of business, the hunger for riches, [and] the lust … for coarse and instant pleasures” (p. 214) caused nervousness, disability, hysteria, and frightfulness. Fast-forward to today and the conversation involves how car traffic, the never-ending flow of digital messages, and the complexities of juggling school, work, and family life are making people anxious, depressed, and physically ill. Although the definition of stress has changed over time, therefore, the notion that stress is an inherent part of life has remained constant ( Monroe & Slavich, 2016 ).

General interest and writing about stress led the way to more formal thinking about this construct during the 19th century. Claude Bernard and Charles Darwin were among the first to describe how, in order to survive, organisms must adapt to ever-changing environmental circumstances ( Weiner, 1992 ). Then, during the 20th century, specific terms for conceptualizing stress emerged. Walter Cannon was among the first theorists to discuss how common emotions have specific physiologic consequences that help the body maintain homeostasis during different situations ( Weiner, 1992 ), and Hans Selye was the first to systematically investigate how different types of social–environmental provocation affect the body ( Selye, 1976 ). Selye’s work was extremely influential in this context, and his perspective still pervades thinking and research on stress and health. According to Selye (1976) , stress is “the nonspecific response of the body to any demand” (p. 74), and stressors are “that which produces stress” (p. 78).

Conceptualization and Measurement of Life Stressors

One important consequence of Selye’s work was that scientists could now make clearer distinctions between external life stressors, such as an argument with a friend or boss, and the internal biological effects that such stressors have on the body. This distinction spurred increased interest in measuring the activity of different biological systems (e.g., brain, sympathetic nervous system, immune system) that might respond to stressors in the environment, as well as an increased focus on assessing life stressors (e.g., divorce, getting fired, being physically attacked). An early technique for assessing stressors was Adolph Meyer’s “life chart” methodology, which enabled researchers to categorize the stressors that individuals experienced ( Meyer, 1951 ). In the 1960s and 1970s, though, comprehensiveness gave way to simplicity, and researchers began using easy-to-complete, self-report checklist measures of life stressor exposure, in which respondents simply indicate whether they have experienced each stressor described on a list ( Dohrenwend, 1998 ; Monroe, Slavich, & Georgiades, 2014 ). Some of the most commonly used self-report checklist measures of stress exposure are the Social Readjustment Rating Scale ( Holmes & Rahe, 1967 ), the List of Threatening Experiences ( Brugha & Cragg, 1990 ), the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire ( Bernstein et al., 1994 ), and the Adverse Childhood Experiences questionnaire ( Felitti et al., 1998 ). The most frequently used measure is probably the Perceived Stress Scale ( Cohen, Kamarck, & Mermelstein, 1983 ), although this instrument assesses aspects of the stress experience (e.g., “How often have you felt nervous and stressed?”) as opposed to a person’s exposure to specific stressors.

Although self-report checklist measures are inexpensive and relatively easy to administer, researchers have raised concerns about their reliability and validity ( Brown, 1974 ; Dohrenwend, 2006 ; Hammen, 2005 ; Monroe, 2008 ; Paykel, 2001 ). The first concern involves whether individuals can accurately remember life events that have happened to them without the assistance of an interviewer who can remind the person of specific events or dates. Research has demonstrated that people can reliably recall major life stressors over long periods of time, but that the quality of such reports is best when individuals’ life histories are probed in a systematic manner by a trained interviewer ( Brewin, Andrews, & Gotlib, 1993 ). Because memories of important events can change over time and can be influenced by mood, a second concern involves whether individuals can self-report on the nature or severity of past stressors in an objective, unbiased manner. This is a particularly important issue in research on stress and depression, given that depressed individuals often exhibit negative biases in attention and memory ( Gotlib & Joormann, 2010 ). Because self-report checklist measures typically describe stressors in relatively general terms, a third concern involves whether researchers actually know what has happened to a respondent given his or her endorsement of a particular item on a checklist. If a checklist item reads, “Did you experience a recent illness or injury?” for example, a person’s endorsement of that item might mean that he or she recently broke a toe, but it could also mean that the person was diagnosed with cancer. Finally, there are concerns about the extent to which self-report checklist measures of stress inadvertently assess the outcomes under study. For example, some checklist measures enquire about sleep problems, anxiety symptoms, and other affective and behavioral outcomes, and this can conflate the measurement of stress with the dependent variables being examined.

To address these limitations, researchers have developed a number of interview-based systems for assessing life stress exposure. These systems ask different questions, but they are similar in that each employs a trained interviewer who inquires about the respondent’s recent life experiences in great detail. To ensure that the stressors are properly characterized with respect to their severity and specific features, the information that is collected about each stressor is then summarized and presented to a panel of expert raters who make consensus judgments about the timing, nature, and severity of each reported stressor. Two of the most commonly used interview-based systems for assessing recent life stress exposure are the Life Events and Difficulties Schedule ( Brown & Harris, 1978 ) and the UCLA Life Stress Interview ( Hammen et al., 1987 ).

Dimensions and Characteristics of Life Stressors

A major benefit of interview-based systems for measuring life stress is that they yield a tremendous amount of information about each stressor, including when and how many times the stressor occurred, how long it lasted, and how it impacted the person’s life. This information enables investigators to verify that the stressors being analyzed occurred before (and not after) the health problems they are trying to study, to distinguish between acute and chronic stressors, and to assess the impact that different types of life experiences have on health. Interview-based systems also produce a wealth of information about the social–psychological characteristics of each stressor, and this information can in turn be used to identify the specific forms and features of life stress that are most relevant for different health outcomes.

The accumulation of stressor characteristics data from so many instruments has given rise to numerous ideas regarding what exactly makes stress harmful for health. Despite great interest in identifying the most deleterious aspects of stress, however, there is little agreement on what features of stressors are most important to measure. One early and still very dominant perspective, based on Selye’s work, is that life stress represents a singular construct, wherein stressors of different types have similar effects on the body. A second idea propagated by Holmes and Rahe (1967) is that stressors can be ranked by the degree of change or upheaval they typically cause in individuals’ lives. A third perspective derived from the work of Steven Maier, Jay Weiss, Martin Seligman, and others focuses on the extent to which people perceive stressors as controllable ( Maier, 1986 ; Seligman, 1975 ; Weiss & Goodman, 1985 ; for a review, see Maier & Watkins, 2005 ). A fourth formulation, adopted mostly by psychopathology researchers, is that stressors can be sorted into life domains, such as “interpersonal” and “achievement,” and that a stressor’s impact is enhanced when it matches the content of a person’s cognitive vulnerability (e.g., a rejection-sensitive person experiencing an interpersonal stressor; Clark & Beck, 1999 ). Finally, a fifth perspective advanced by Brown and Harris (1978) is that stressors are most impactful when they cause substantial cognitive upheaval or disrupt a person’s goals, plans, and aspirations for the future.

In addition to these formulations, some researchers have taken a more evolutionarily based perspective on what makes particular stressors stressful. Broadly speaking, these theories underscore that humans are fundamentally motivated to maintain close social bonds because of the nurturance and protection that others provide (e.g., Baumeister & Leary, 1995 ; Gilbert, 1992 ; Leary, 2007 ). As a result of this innate motivational drive, the termination of close social bonds is hypothesized to be particularly emotionally distressing, especially when such bonds are intentionally terminated. Several studies have examined predictions derived from these theories, and this body of work suggests that stressors involving interpersonal loss are some of the strongest precipitants of emotional distress, even when compared to other stressors that are similarly severe ( Kendler, Hettema, Butera, Gardner, & Prescott, 2003 ; Slavich, Thornton, Torres, Monroe, & Gotlib, 2009 ; see also Brown, Harris, & Hepworth, 1995 ). Moreover, experiences of interpersonal loss may make individuals more sensitive to subsequent stressors involving loss ( Slavich, Monroe, & Gotlib, 2011 ), with individuals’ perceptions of such events potentially playing an influential role in shaping the stress experience and response ( Blascovich, 2007 ; Crum, Salovey, & Achor, 2013 ; Lebois, Hertzog, Slavich, Feldman Barrett, & Barsalou, 2016 ). In sum, then, although the concept of stress has been viewed from many different angles over the years, one of the most recent and fruitful perspectives has been to understand the implications that stressors have for social relationships, with a particular focus on the different circumstances under which interpersonal loss can occur (e.g., death of a loved one vs. a relationship break up).

Stress and Health

These developments in the conceptualization and measurement of life stress have helped greatly advance the science of stress and health. Indeed, nowadays, there is little debate about whether life stress plays a role in affecting health. As summarized in Figure 1 , extensive research has examined these effects, and the take-home message from this literature is that stress exposure increases risk for poor clinical outcomes across a variety of major health conditions, including rheumatoid arthritis ( Cutolo & Straub, 2006 ), depression ( Kendler, Karkowski, & Prescott, 1999 ; Monroe, Slavich, Torres, & Gotlib, 2007 ), cardiovascular disease ( Kivimäki et al., 2006 ), chronic pain ( Loeser & Melzack, 1999 ), human immunodeficiency virus/AIDS ( Leserman, 2008 ), ovarian cancer ( Lutgendorf et al., 2013 ), and breast cancer ( Bower, Crosswell, & Slavich, 2014 ; Lamkin & Slavich, 2016 ). Stress has also been implicated in accelerated biological aging and premature mortality ( Epel et al., 2004 ; Holt-Lunstad, Smith, & Layton, 2010 ; for a review, see Cohen, Janicki-Deverts, & Miller, 2007 ).

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Life stress and health. Life stress has been implicated in the development, maintenance, or exacerbation of several major mental and physical health conditions, in addition to accelerated biological aging and premature mortality.

Mechanisms Linking Stress and Health

Given that life stress is associated with so many different health outcomes, researchers have recently attempted to identify whether stress increases risk for different disorders through a common biological pathway. One of the most recent and potentially important findings in this context involves the discovery that stress can upregulate components of the immune system involved in inflammation ( Segerstrom & Miller, 2004 ; Slavich & Irwin, 2014 ). Moreover, consistent with the stress–health links described above, there is emerging evidence showing that stressors involving interpersonal loss and social rejection are among the strongest psychosocial activators of molecular processes that underlie inflammation ( Murphy, Slavich, Chen, & Miller, 2015 ; Murphy, Slavich, Rohleder, & Miller, 2013 ; for a review, see Slavich, O’Donovan, Epel, & Kemeny, 2010 ). Although inflammation is typically thought of as the body’s primary response to physical injury and infection, researchers have recently identified that inflammation plays a role in several of the most burdensome and deadly diseases ( Couzin-Frankel, 2010 ; Slavich, 2015 ), thereby making inflammation a potential common pathway linking stress with several disease states.

Although life stress is a strong risk factor for disease, not everyone who experiences stress gets sick. As a result, some researchers have turned to the brain to understand individual differences in how people experience stress, as well as how the brain initiates downstream biological processes that promote disease. A recent finding in this context has been the discovery that stressors involving social evaluation and rejection, which can induce experiences of “social pain,” activate some of the same brain regions that are engaged by physical pain ( Dedovic, Slavich, Muscatell, Irwin, & Eisenberger, 2016 ; Kross, Berman, Mischel, Smith, & Wager, 2011 ; for a review, see Eisenberger, 2012 ). There is also evidence that some of the same genetic factors that regulate experiences of physical pain may influence experiences of social pain ( Slavich, Tartter, Brennan, & Hammen, 2014 ). Moreover, individual differences in neural responses to social stress in these particular brain regions predict differences in inflammatory responding to social stress ( Muscatell et al., 2015 ; Slavich, Way, Eisenberger, & Taylor, 2010 ). As a result, one emerging idea is that individuals who are more neurally sensitive to social stressors may mount greater inflammatory responses to social stress ( Slavich & Irwin, 2014 ; Slavich, O’Donovan, et al., 2010 ). Such a reactivity profile may be adaptive in the short term, as it can help prevent the spread of infection and accelerate wound healing and recovery. If repeatedly engaged, however, heightened neuroinflammatory responses to social stress may increase a person’s risk for a number of diseases that involve inflammation ( Nusslock & Miller, 2016 ; Slavich & Irwin, 2014 ).

Recent research has also begun to examine how social stressors affect the activity of the human genome ( Slavich & Cole, 2013 ). Because people cannot detect changes in their own genomic activity, they generally experience their bodies as being biologically stable over time and across the different social and environmental circumstances they experience in daily life. In reality, though, the human genome is continually shifting its activity to coordinate biological processes that are needed to sustain life and to calibrate the body to deal with the surrounding social, physical, and microbial environment. Some of the earliest work on this topic found that living in a rural versus urban environment has a substantial effect on individuals’ genomic profile ( Idaghdour, Storey, Jadallah, & Gibson, 2008 ). Around the same time, Cole and colleagues (2007) found that more than 200 genes were differentially expressed in lonely versus nonlonely individuals. Because many of those differentially expressed genes are involved in immune system activity, including inflammatory responding and the antiviral response, these data provided some of the first indications that experiences of social stress and adversity may affect disease risk and mortality in part by influencing some of our most basic biological processes—namely, the expression of our genes.

Lifetime Stress Exposure and Health

In addition to this research on the biological mechanisms linking stress and health, recent work has focused on understanding the implications that different forms of life stress have for disease. At a basic level, stressors can occur as acute life events, such as getting fired or finding out that a loved one has died, or as chronic difficulties, such as living in a dangerous neighborhood or having persistent financial or marital problems ( Monroe & Slavich, 2016 ; Slavich, 2016 ). Research has shown that these two forms of stress have different effects ( Monroe et al., 2007 ; Muscatell, Slavich, Monroe, & Gotlib, 2009 ). In addition, a small but growing body of work is showing that the impact of acute life events and chronic difficulties occurring over a person’s lifespan may exert a cumulative effect on the body that has implications for the development of disease ( Lupien, McEwen, Gunnar, & Heim, 2009 ).

The notion that stress can exert biological “wear and tear” on the body that develops over time is not new. Indeed, several theorists have proposed different models for how acute life events and chronic difficulties may accumulate and disrupt biological systems that lead to altered neural and immune system function, oxidative stress, accelerated biological aging, and ultimately different disease states and premature mortality (e.g., Graham, Christian, & Kiecolt-Glaser, 2006 ; Lupien et al., 2009 ; McEwen, 1998 ). What is new in this area of research, however, is the ability to measure all of the different acute life events and chronic difficulties that individuals have experienced over the life course and to relate individuals’ unique lifetime stress exposure profiles to biological and clinical outcomes.

The instrument that has been developed for assessing lifetime stress exposure is called the Stress and Adversity Inventory (STRAIN). This online system enquires about 96 different types of acute life events and chronic difficulties that a person might have experienced over the life course. For each stressor that a person endorses, follow-up questions ascertain how bad the stressor was (severity), how many times the person experienced the stressor (frequency), when the stressor occurred (timing), and how long it lasted (duration). Based on this information, the STRAIN can produce 115 different stress exposure scores and life charts that enable researchers to characterize a person’s experience of many different types of stressors over the lifespan. The tool has thus been helpful for advancing the conceptualization of stress, but also for documenting how lifetime stress exposure affects mental and physical health in the general population ( Toussaint, Shields, Dorn, & Slavich, 2016 ), as well as clinical outcomes in specific disease populations ( Bower et al., 2014 ). Looking forward, much more research is needed to understand how lifetime stress exposure increases disease risk in healthy and vulnerable populations ( Myers et al., 2015 ). Research is also needed to elucidate the biological mechanisms that link lifetime stress exposure and health ( Seo, Tsou, Ansell, Potenza, & Sinha, 2014 ).

Teaching Stress and Health

Understanding how stress affects health is inherently interesting for most people. The topic is especially salient for college students, though, given recent estimates suggesting that 19.3% of male students and 40.5% of female students feel “emotionally overwhelmed” by the demands imposed on them ( Pryor et al., 2012 ). The magnitude of this issue is compounded by the fact that less than one fourth of college students who require treatment for a mental health problem seek professional help ( Blanco et al., 2008 ). These statistics may sound alarming, but the silver lining is that a majority of individuals who experience major life stressors do not get ill. Research has begun to identify cognitive and personality factors that may make individuals more resilient to stress ( Crum et al., 2013 ; Shields, Young Kuchenbecker, Pressman, Sumida, & Slavich, 2016 ; Toussaint, Shields, & Slavich, in press ). Additionally, a growing body of research is demonstrating that several psychological, cognitive, and behavioral interventions may help to improve individuals’ academic performance, stress-related biological reactivity, and mental and physical health ( Black & Slavich, 2016 ; Free et al., 2013 ; Regehr, Glancy, & Pitts, 2013 ; Yeager & Walton, 2011 ).

In addition, stress and health is a readily teachable topic, given that the content for courses and lectures on these issues can be culled in part from students’ personal experiences. Along these lines, we recently conducted two studies in which we aimed to enhance students’ understanding of the link between stress and health by employing a new approach to classroom instruction called transformational teaching ( Slavich, 2005 , 2006 , 2009 ; Slavich & Zimbardo, 2012 ). This approach involves “creating dynamic relationships between teachers, students, and a shared body of knowledge in a way that promotes student learning and personal growth” ( Slavich & Zimbardo, 2012 , p. 576). According to the original formulation of transformational teaching ( Slavich, 2005 ), teachers accomplish these instructional goals by establishing a shared vision for a course, providing modeling and mastery experiences, challenging and encouraging students, personalizing attention and feedback, creating experiential lessons that transcend the boundaries of the classroom, and promoting ample opportunities for preflection and reflection (see Slavich & Zimbardo, 2012 ).

Two recent studies on transformational teaching provide a blueprint for how teachers can integrate the STRAIN into a course or lecture on stress and health to teach students about these concepts (see Slavich & Toussaint, 2014 ). In the first of these studies, all students completed the STRAIN online, which takes approximately 20 min. Then, 2 days later, we randomly assigned half of the students to listen to a 25-min lecture on the conceptualization and assessment of stress, the content and structure of the STRAIN, and the types of stress that were most frequently reported by students (i.e., the overall, class-averaged STRAIN results, with no disclosure of personal information). Students then discussed their experiences completing the STRAIN and reflected on stress–health links in their own lives. In the second study, we randomly assigned students to complete (a) either the STRAIN or a control task and (b) either a STRAIN-specific lecture or a general lecture on stress. The main finding from these two studies was that having students complete the STRAIN before or after a lecture on stress and health significantly improved their understanding of how stress affects health. A list of suggested instructions for how teachers might integrate the STRAIN into a lecture or course on stress and health is presented in Table 1 .

Steps for Integrating the STRAIN into a Course or Lecture on Stress and Health Using Methods from Transformational Teaching.

Note . STRAIN = Stress and Adversity Inventory

Summary and Conclusions

In summary, our understanding of how stress affects health has come a long way since the days of Sisyphus and Selye. Researchers now have clearer distinctions between life stress exposure and response and better frameworks for conceptualizing and defining different forms and features of life stress. This research has been very impactful, as it has highlighted that not all types of stressors are equivalent with respect to their impact on health. This work has also helped investigators elucidate psychological and biological mechanisms that might link experiences of stress with disease. Some of the most recent studies on this topic have adopted a life-course perspective on examining links between stress and health, and this approach has already proven fruitful to the extent that researchers now have an instrument for assessing lifetime stress exposure and new ideas on how adverse experiences might accumulate over time and become embedded in the brain and body to affect lifespan health. Given the relevance of this work for disease onset and progression, it is critical that students understand how stress affects health, as well as what they can do to mitigate these effects. Stress increases individuals’ risk for a variety of diseases, but people also hold substantial power to reduce these effects and improve their personal and collective psychosocial well-being.

Acknowledgments

The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Preparation of this review was supported by National Institutes of Health grant K08 MH103443 and by a Society in Science—Branco Weiss Fellowship to George Slavich.

George M. Slavich is an associate professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA and a research scientist at the Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, where he directs the UCLA Laboratory for Stress Assessment and Research. His research aims to advance the conceptualization and assessment of life stress and to elucidate psychological and biological mechanisms linking stress with disease. He developed the first online system for assessing lifetime stress exposure, called the Stress and Adversity Inventory (STRAIN); formulated the first fully integrated, multilevel theory of depression; and has helped pioneer a new field of research called human social genomics . In addition to research, he is deeply devoted to excellence in teaching and mentorship. Early in his career, for example, he founded the Society of Clinical Psychology’s Section on Graduate Students and Early Career Psychologists, the Western Psychological Association Student Council, and the Stanford Undergraduate Psychology Conference. He has also developed a new approach to classroom instruction called transformational teaching . He has received 16 major awards for research, teaching, and mentorship since 2009. These honors include the Susan Nolen-Hoeksema Early Career Research Award from the Society for a Science of Clinical Psychology, the Neal E. Miller New Investigator Award from the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, the Wilbert J. McKeachie Teaching Excellence Award from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology, and the Raymond D. Fowler Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Professional Development of Graduate Students from the American Psychological Association.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Essay on Stress Management

500 words essay on stress management.

Stress is a very complex phenomenon that we can define in several ways. However, if you put them together, it is basically the wear and tear of daily life. Stress management refers to a wide spectrum of techniques and psychotherapies for controlling a person’s stress level, especially chronic stress . If there is effective stress management, we can help one another break the hold of stress on our lives. The essay on stress management will throw light on the very same thing.

Identifying the Source of Stress

The first step of stress management is identifying the source of stress in your life. It is not as easy as that but it is essential. The true source of stress may not always be evident as we tend to overlook our own stress-inducing thoughts and feelings.

For instance, you might constantly worry about meeting your deadline. But, in reality, maybe your procrastination is what leads to this stress than the actual deadline. In order to identify the source of stress, we must look closely within ourselves.

If you explain away stress as temporary, then it may be a problem. Like if you yourself don’t take a breather from time to time, what is the point? On the other hand, is stress an integral part of your work and you acknowledging it like that?

If you make it a part of your personality, like you label things as crazy or nervous energy, you need to look further. Most importantly, do you blame the stress on people around you or the events surrounding you?

It is essential to take responsibility for the role one plays in creating or maintaining stress. Your stress will remain outside your control if you do not do it.

Strategies for Stress Management

It is obvious that we cannot avoid all kinds of stress but there are many stressors in your life which you can definitely eliminate. It is important to learn how to say no and stick to them. Try to avoid people who stress you out.

Further, if you cannot avoid a stressful situation, try altering it. Express your feelings don’t bottle them up and manage your time better. Moreover, you can also adapt to the stressor if you can’t change it.

Reframe problems and look at the big picture. Similarly, adjust your standards and focus on the positive side. Never try to control the uncontrollable. Most importantly, make time for having fun and relaxing.

Spend some time with nature, go for a walk or call a friend, whatever pleases you. You can also try working out, listening to music and more. As long as it makes you happy, never give up.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Conclusion of the Essay on Stress Management

All in all, we can control our stress levels with relaxation techniques that evoke the relaxation response of our body. It is the state of restfulness that is the opposite of the stress response. Thus, when you practice these techniques regularly, you can build your resilience and heal yourself.

FAQ of Essay on Stress Management

Question 1: What is the importance of stress management?

Answer 1: Stress management is very efficient as it helps in breaking the hold which stress has on our lives. Moreover, you can also become happy, healthy and more productive because of it. The ultimate goal should be to live a balanced life and have the resilience to hold up under pressure.

Question 2: Give some stress management techniques.

Answer 2: There are many stress management techniques through which one can reduce stress in their lives. One can change their situation or their reaction to it. We can try by altering the situation. If not, we can change our attitudes towards it. Remember, accept things that you cannot change.

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Some people don’t experience stress. Are they happier?

Research shows that some types of stressors—and the way we react to them—can actually be beneficial to our overall health and well-being. Here’s how.

A young boy quarter back in a white and red uniform about to throw a football to a teammate.

Susan Charles loves figuring out what keeps people happy. Throughout her career studying emotional processes across the adult life span, the professor of psychological science at University of California, Irvine has returned to this research focus again and again. Most emotions are experienced in a social context, so “what keeps us happy is often what keeps us safe,” she says. “What keeps us enjoying the people … that add meaning to our lives.” And quantifying daily stressors is part of unlocking the key to that happiness.

Much of her data come from a treasure trove of information known as the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) series, a groundbreaking longitudinal study based at the University of Wisconsin–Madison that tracks participants’ health and well-being through daily diaries and surveys conducted over the phone. There have been three major waves of data collection every 10 years—in 1995, 2005, and 2015—with a special fourth survey in 2012 to capture the effects of the Great Recession, a collective stressor. The researchers are now also collecting special data tracking the effects of the pandemic.

For eight days in a row, participants at each wave of the midlife study spoke to a researcher over the phone about their day. Respondents shared whether or not they experienced any stressors, such as getting into an argument with a friend or having a problem at work—the kinds of stressors that aren’t life-threatening but can be disruptive. Charles dug into these surveys, wanting to learn from the answers how different people react to and handle stress. But she kept having to throw out a small portion of the data.

Throughout every wave of the MIDUS study, 10 percent of respondents answered “no” to every question researchers asked about whether they experienced stress in some form that day. In other words, for eight days straight, these participants did not experience one iota of everyday, normal life stress. At first these outliers were meaningless to Charles, because a person who didn’t perceive or experience stress couldn’t help her figure out how people manage under stress. But then she thought, Wait a minute, who are these people?

A line of people, sitting in chairs at desks with white partitions.

Mixed blessing

A life devoid of stress, and stressors, might sound idyllic, but don’t be fooled. There’s a reason Charles decided to call her 2021 study of these miraculously unbothered outliers “The Mixed Benefits of a Stressor-Free Life.”

Charles and her colleagues found that without stress, a person would report higher levels of happiness than the general population and lower levels of other chronic health issues, but they also displayed signs of cognitive decline, such as lowered attention and concentration, worse short- and long-term memory, worse problem-solving, and a lowered ability to focus or inhibit unwanted behavior.

The message of this type of work isn’t that we should all learn to cherish every stressor we encounter. Not all moments of stress response are created equal. When researchers talk about the ones that do benefit people, “we’re not talking about really negative things like trauma-type stressors, we’re talking about things that are very normative in people’s lives,” says Jeremy Jamieson, a stress researcher at the University of Rochester.

He wasn’t involved in Charles’s study, but he, like Charles, studies the benefits of certain types of stress, an experience that usually gets a bad rap across the board. “Doing a hard assignment or taking on a difficult task at work—these are things that we all do all the time, and they’re not necessarily negative, but oftentimes they’re presented as such,” says Jamieson.

As with pain, the general experience of stress is universal, but what sets off this system is highly subjective. Two people, both capable of experiencing stress, can face the same relative stressor, say performing in the school play, and each handle it differently. One person may clam up under the spotlight, and the other may feel totally at home on the stage.

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Also like pain, not experiencing stress may help a person avoid one problem, but it can summon others. While people who don’t feel pain may avoid one of life’s more unpleasant sensations, they are also prone to injury, since pain triggers a reflex that keeps us safe—it’s what tells us to take our hand off a hot stove. Someone who doesn’t feel pain could end up burning off their skin.

A multi-colored, kaleidoscope of crystalizes shapes ranging from small to micro sizes.

For its part, the stress response allows us to experience the full spectrum of life and facilitates learning. The hippocampus—the part of the brain that helps promote learning through memory—loves novelty. Successfully overcoming a small daily life stressor presents novelty in droves, and the opportunity for growth. Without these non-life-threatening challenges, the brain starts to suffer. This is likely what’s behind the lower memory and problem-solving skills Charles noted in the unstressed participants of the MIDUS cohort.

“When people feel the first sense of being overwhelmed, the response is to disengage, to back off and go away, but you don’t need to do that all the time,” says Jamieson. “To actually learn to be resilient, and persevere through challenges or difficulties, that’s an important skill set. That’s not just something that we either do or don’t do, it’s something that we can learn how to do.”

Charles will never fully be able to answer the question of who these stress-free people are. The identities of the survey takers are closely guarded by Carol Ryff, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who runs the MIDUS study.

But Charles does know the general profile of a stress-free person: They tend to be older, unmarried men with lower levels of education than those who reported at least one daily stressor during the eight days of surveys. The unstressed also reported many fewer daily activities than the rest of the cohort, except for watching TV, which they did with higher frequency than those who reported experiencing daily stressors.

For Charles, the most interesting tidbit is that it would seem on the surface that having fewer social interactions lowers a person’s daily stress—but that likely isn’t the whole story. Of the daily activities the MIDUS data capture, the unstressed reported spending fewer hours than the stressed on only the activities that typically include interacting with other people—working, volunteering, and both providing and receiving emotional support.

But Charles notes the paradox here: Having more social support is also an effective buffer against stress. “We know that people are our source of stress often in life,” Charles says with a warm laugh, but adds: “They’re absolutely necessary for us; we’re social creatures.”

There seems to be a sweet spot, an ideal amount of social support that keeps us thriving cognitively before too much time with other people becomes its own source of stress. The role of social networks, like so many aspects of the stress experience, is something researchers are continually exploring.

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Essay on Stress | Importance of Stress Management in Life

Essay on Stress Management | Causes, Impacts of Stress & Ways to deal Stress in Life

Managing stress can help prevent health conditions such as pain, depression and diabetes. Stress management is a very broad term and it can be achieved through many different things. There are different types of stress management like: crisis, work and environmental. Stress can be caused by all kinds of things such as: everyday life, the economy, emotions, physical health, family responsibility, illness or personal crisis.

>>>>>> Related Post: Essay on disadvantages of Mobile Phone

Stress management is important because it can help reduce anxiety and depression. People who experience stress are more likely to have high blood pressure, heart disease, digestive problems and even obesity.

Importance of Stress Management

Stress can help motivate and enhance performance. This is known as eustress, the good kind of stress. We experience this most often when we are in love. However, there is also a type of stress called distress. This is the kind of stress that leads to anxiety and depression which is the worst kind.

Stress is a part of everyday life and it doesn’t always have to be a bad thing. There are many ways to manage stress and it is important to maintain a healthy balance. Stress management encourages people to give their bodies and minds what they need to function at their best. If you feel overwhelmed, stressed or anxious it is helpful to take time to reflect and find a way to cope with these feelings.

Impacts of Stress on Life

Stress causes the release of stress hormones and these can cause a number of harmful impacts on students life such as poor academic performance, poor quality work and mental and physical illnesses.

Academic performance: Under stress, the mind and body become unable to function to their fullest potential. As a result, a student’s intellect and attentiveness to the subject matter may be unfocused and diminished. This lack of concentration can lead to poor performance in exams and assessments.

Health: Stress can also cause physical symptoms such as headaches, nausea, etc. These symptoms may lead to the student taking sick leave from school. When a student is ill, their academic performance will also be lowered.

Mental illness: Long term stress can cause mental illness such as depression and may lead to a student’s withdrawal from school. In this way, their academic performance will also be hampered as they will not be able to focus on their studies.

Impacts of Stress on Self Confidence

The severe stress is linked to low self-esteem and a loss of confidence. This can lead to a person avoiding social situations and withdrawing from their friends, family and the community.

Manage Stress in Personal and Professional Life

Following are the ways through which one can hopefully manage stress in personal and professional life as well;

Identify the stressor: When you are overwhelmed with stress, take a moment to reflect on what is causing it. Once you have identified the stressor, you can then move on to finding a way to manage it.
Reduce clutter: Is your house cluttered with papers and clothes? Start by removing the clutter. Clutter can make even an organized individual feel overwhelmed. If you are always stressing over tidying up your house, you need to make time and work on this task.
Work out: Simply going for a walk or doing some stretches can help relieve stress. When you exercise, your body produces endorphins which improve mood and reduce stress.
Think positive: Stressful events are inevitable but how you respond to them is what counts. Negative thinking can have a bad impact on your overall mood. Try being positive no matter what the situation and it will help relieve stress.
Get enough sleep: Everyone has a different opinion of how much sleep they need to function at their best. If you are constantly feeling tired, taking a nap might help.
Listen to music: Listening to classical or soothing music can help you relax and take your mind off stressful thoughts.
Breathe: Yes, it is that simple! Deep breathing exercises can help clear your mind and help you feel more relaxed.
Bake: Baking is a great stress reliever and if anyone in your household loves to bake, have them help you whip up a sweet treat. You can even try your hand at baking or create a new recipe!
Develop a hobby: Everyone needs time to ruminate on their thoughts and enjoy themselves. Developing a hobby can help you relax and take your mind off of stressful events.
Be with friends and family: Having a bad day is a lot easier to deal with when you have the support from friends and family.
Manage time: Avoid putting too much on your plate when you have a lot going on in your life. Setting priorities will help you manage your time better.

Stress follows a simple pattern that is repeated in different forms throughout life like what you do when nothing seems to be working. If you can recognize this pattern, it becomes easier to manage stress.

>>>>> Related Post: Essay on My Ideal Person in Life

Stress management is the key element in our life. The better you manage stress the better your life would be. Therefore, its essential to manage stress for a healthy and balanced life.

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What Are the 5 Top Stressors in Life?

Tips for coping with traumatic life events

Dr. Sabrina Romanoff, PsyD, is a licensed clinical psychologist and a professor at Yeshiva University’s clinical psychology doctoral program.

Delmaine Donson / Getty Images

Death of a Loved One

Divorce or Separation

Long-term illness.

Stress is a normal part of life—but some changes in relationships, finances, school, health, career, and family cause more anxiety than others. Here are the five top stressors in life, along with a few tips to deal with them.

Chronic day-to-day stress (as opposed to acute stress ) can affect your health—for example, causing digestive issues, inflammation, a weakened immune system, sleep issues, anxiety, and sexual problems.

Death of a Loved One

When someone you're close to passes away, you'll typically experience a range of sometimes surprising emotions. These might include confusion, shock, sadness, numbness, anger, and even guilt. All of these feelings are valid.

Because the change is so significant, processing what happened and facing a reality without this person can be excruciatingly difficult.

There's no right or wrong way to feel about a loved one’s death and no standard way to grieve. Healing and its timetable differ from person to person, but these strategies can help.

Let yourself feel the range of emotions: You may have heard of the five stages of grief ; however, research has shown that identifying the phase you're in is not helpful, especially when you haven’t experienced it before. Instead of worrying about going from one stage of grief to another, allow yourself to experience the full range of emotions and focus on reaching a mental state of peace.
Take time to heal: Recovering from the loss can be a long journey. You might want to move on quickly to get back to feeling normal; however, it’s important to take all the time needed to properly care for yourself. Although you may feel isolated, sharing your grief and talking about your feelings with family and friends can be beneficial.
Remember that there's no shame in getting professional help: The death of a loved one can cause overwhelming stress and significantly affect your life. Seeking support such as bereavement therapy can help you work through difficult emotions such as guilt and develop ways to adapt to a life without your loved one.

Divorce or separation from a spouse can cause major stress. In addition to the emotional and mental stress, there are legal considerations such as child custody, finances, assets, and living situations. Even if the decision to end the relationship is mutual, both partners must deal with a host of issues while they move forward separately . here are a few tips to cope with a divorce or separation:

Accept your emotions and learn to let go: Ending a relationship can generate many feelings that are difficult to manage. You might feel relief and then guilt about feeling that way. You might feel angry and hopeless. Instead of suppressing these feelings, embrace them and let them move through you like a wave. Accepting them has been shown to help people move forward from their divorces.
Focus on loving yourself: You might feel like you’ve failed or that you didn’t try hard enough in your relationship; however, it’s important during this time to practice self-care and self-compassion.
Set personal goals: Life without a partner can seem scary, but this is an opportunity to reassess your goals. What have you always wanted to try or learn? What hobbies do you love but haven’t had time to explore? It’s time to rediscover these and start enjoying them.
Join a support group : It can be helpful to connect with others who are divorced or are going through a divorce. A divorce support group can provide tools and camaraderie to help you cope and see you're not alone.

Moving can be quite stressful, especially if the move is unexpected or is because of a fire, financial struggles, or a traumatic event. You might even feel anticipatory grief —anxiety at just the thought of such a huge change. Here are a few tips to cope with a move :

Remember that stress is a normal part of moving: If you’re moving into a bigger place or with your partner , you might feel obligated to be excited and happy, but even moving for a positive reason can be stressful. Change is hard for everyone, and accepting stress as a normal part of it can help you manage the move.
Plan and stay organized: Give yourself plenty of time to plan your move. It takes longer than you think to label, sort, and pack your belongings. You might dread the process and want to procrastinate , but the earlier you start, the less rushed and frantic you’ll be on moving day.
Ask for help from friends and family: Even if they don’t physically help during the move, they can provide emotional support.
Hire professional movers: If you're financially able, hire professional movers. This can reduce the work and stress related to packing, lifting, and transporting.

Illness and stress have a symbiotic relationship: Chronic stress weakens your immune system, making you more susceptible to illness. Stress increases the risk of diabetes mellitus , peptic ulcers, ulcerative colitis, and atherosclerosis. Here are some tips to cope with illness.

Learn about your illness: Talk to a healthcare professional about your illness and design a treatment plan together that meets your needs. Depending on the severity of your illness, it’s important to remain realistic about your expectations.
Take care of yourself: If you’re able, get enough sleep, maintain a healthy diet, stay physically active, and explore self-care practices such as meditation and mindfulness. Ask for help with difficult tasks. Avoid using alcohol or substances as coping mechanisms.
Seek counseling: Various counseling options can help you manage your long-term health condition. These include individual counseling, family and couples counseling , and support groups.

Losing your job can cause shame , grief , disappointment, guilt, and self-defeating thoughts. In addition to the negative impact on your self-esteem, you have to worry about your finances and a new job. Your daily routine has changed abruptly, which can be difficult to adapt to—especially if you’ve been at your job for a long time. Here's how to cope with job loss :

Don’t ignore your feelings: For some people, losing a job feels like losing a loved one. You might feel shocked, sad, depressed, angry, or any combination thereof—all normal. Feel your feelings instead of bottling them up.
Learn to accept your situation: Try to focus on the things you can control, such as your reaction, attitude, and forward movement. Losing your income and benefits could mean major lifestyle changes, so take charge of your finances: Make a budget and get help from a financial advisor.
Reach out to your network: You might feel alone in this, but you aren’t, and you don’t have to deal with this by yourself. Connect with friends and family. Job loss is common; sharing your experiences can help you understand your situation better and learn from others.

American Psychology Association. Stress effects on the body .

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By Katharine Chan, MSc, BSc, PMP Katharine is the author of three books (How To Deal With Asian Parents, A Brutally Honest Dating Guide and A Straight Up Guide to a Happy and Healthy Marriage) and the creator of 60 Feelings To Feel: A Journal To Identify Your Emotions. She has over 15 years of experience working in British Columbia's healthcare system.

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Rise and grind working late, volatile hours may lead to depression, illness by 50.

Ronnie Cohen

Working late nights and variable schedules when you're young is linked with poor health and depression at 50, a new study finds. simonkr/Getty Images hide caption

Working late nights and variable schedules when you're young is linked with poor health and depression at 50, a new study finds.

Feeling burned out and looking for reasons to work less? A new study shows that working nights and volatile schedules in young adulthood can leave you vulnerable to depression and poor health in middle age.

The research examined the work schedules and sleep patterns of more than 7,000 Americans interviewed over three decades, from the ages of 22 through 50. To the surprise of the study's author, NYU Silver School of Social Work professor Wen-Jui Han , only one-quarter of the participants worked exclusively traditional daytime hours.

The remainder – three-quarters of the sample of American workers born in the 1960s – worked variable hours. Those with more volatile work schedules, including night hours and rotating shifts, reported less sleep and a greater likelihood of poor health and depression at age 50 than those with more stable schedules and daytime hours.

"Our work now is making us sick and poor," Han said in a Zoom interview. "Work is supposed to allow us to accumulate resources. But, for a lot of people, their work doesn't allow them to do so. They actually become more and more miserable over time."

Han would like her research — published last week in PLOS One — to prompt conversations about ways to "provide resources to support people to have a happy and healthy life when they're physically exhausted and emotionally drained because of their work."

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Want to stress less in 2024 a new book offers '5 resets' to tame toxic stress.

She was one of those employees. In her 40s, when Han was up for tenure, she worked 16-hour days, taking time off only to eat and sleep, though not sleeping nearly enough. Her doctor warned her that her physical condition appeared more like that of a woman in her 60s.

She was overworking like many young professionals who have embraced hustle culture and work around the clock.

"We can say they voluntarily want to work long hours, but in reality, it's not about voluntarily working long hours," Han said. "They sense that the culture of their work demands that they work long hours, or they may get penalized."

She says the participants in her study who sacrificed sleep to earn a living, suffered depression and poor health, she said. "When our work becomes a daily stressor, these are the kind of health consequences you may expect to see 30 years down the road."

Black men and women and workers with limited educations disproportionately shouldered the burden of night shifts, volatile work schedules and sleep deprivation, the study shows.

White college-educated women with stable daytime work reported an average of six more hours of sleep a week than Black men who had not completed high school and who worked variable hours for most of their lives, Han's study found.

And Black women who did not complete high school and switched from regular daytime hours to volatile employment in their 30s were four times more likely to report poor health than white college-educated men with stable and standard daytime work lives.

The study shows a relationship between working nights and rotating shifts with poor sleep and poor health, but it cannot prove one caused the other. That said, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention links insufficient sleep with chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity, and African Americans are more likely than whites to suffer from these diseases.

How much a person needs to sleep to remain healthy depends upon age, but the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society recommend that adults between 18 and 60 years old get at least seven hours of shut-eye a night.

Dr. Alyson Myers appreciated the new study's focus on the connection between work schedules, sleep and poor health.

The study findings confirmed what she sees in many of her diabetes patients, who often get no more than five hours of sleep after they work night shifts. She counsels them to try to switch to days, and when they do, their health improves, the endocrinologist and professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine said.

Prior research has shown that sleep, diet and social habits required to work nights and rotating shifts, can increase the risk of developing diabetes. In 2019, Blacks were twice as likely as whites to die of diabetes , according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

"Poor sleep is a risk factor for diabetes that very often we do not talk about," said Myers, who was not involved in the study. "One of the things that I have to preach to my patients about is that working nights, and if you get only four or five or less hours of sleep, that's going to increase your risk of diabetes and also worsen your glycemic control."

One patient was angry with her when he followed her advice, switched from working nights to days and as a result had to contend with commute traffic. "But," she said in a Zoom interview, "we actually got better control of his blood sugar when he switched to working the day shift."

About 16% of American workers were employed outside of daytime hours in 2019, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Many of the participants in Hans' study who had volatile work schedules tended to have part-time jobs, in some cases multiple part-time jobs. "Unfortunately," Myers said, "the trend for a lot of these people is that they have to work more than one job to survive."

Ronnie Cohen is a San Francisco Bay Area journalist focused on health and social justice issues.

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Benefits of adopting a stoic mindset in your work and life.

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Stoicism encourages people to focus on what they can control and accept what they cannot, leading to ... [+] emotional resilience and inner strength. This mindset helps individuals manage stress, setbacks and uncertainties effectively.

Stoicism, or Stoic philosophy, is an ancient Greek philosophy that can offer numerous benefits in both work and life, providing individuals with the tools to navigate challenges, enhance resilience and achieve personal and professional growth.

Stoicism encourages people to focus on what they can control and accept what they cannot, leading to emotional resilience and inner strength. This mindset helps individuals manage stress, setbacks and uncertainties effectively.

By practicing Stoic principles, individuals can gain clarity of thought, peace of mind and freedom from burdensome worries and anxieties. This mental clarity allows for better decision-making and a more balanced approach to life's challenges.

Stoicism emphasizes virtues like wisdom, courage, justice and temperance, guiding individuals to align their actions with these values. This focus on ethical principles can lead to a more purposeful and meaningful life.

It helps people develop self-discipline, self-control and the ability to manage impulses and emotions effectively. This self-mastery is beneficial in work settings where composure and rational decision-making are essential.

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The Stoic framework teaches individuals to detach themselves from external events and focus on their internal responses, reducing stress levels and promoting mental well-being.

By prioritizing what is within their control and letting go of what is not, individuals can channel their energy into productive actions rather than being consumed by distractions or worries. This focus on productivity can enhance work performance and efficiency.

How To Use The Stoic Philosophy To Manage Stress And Anxiety

By incorporating these Stoic principles into daily life, you can develop a mindset that promotes mindfulness, acceptance of reality, gratitude for the present moment and a deeper connection to your surroundings.

Focus On What You Can Control

Focus on what is within their control and let go of what is not. By directing your attention to actionable steps and decisions, you can reduce stress caused by worrying about external factors.

Accept Reality

Embrace the concept of Amor Fati, which translates to "love of fate." Stoicism encourages individuals to accept the present circumstances and events as they are, fostering a sense of peace and resilience in the face of adversity.

Regulate Your Emotions

Stoics believe that individuals have the power to control their responses to external situations. By acknowledging this internal locus of control, you can manage your emotional reactions effectively.

Practice Self-Reflection

Engaging in self-reflection allows individuals to understand their motivations, fears and reactions better. By examining their perceptions and seeking feedback from trusted sources, individuals can gain clarity and reduce anxiety levels.

Practice Mindfulness And Live In The Present Moment

Stoicism emphasizes the importance of living in the present moment and being mindful of current experiences rather than dwelling on past regrets or future uncertainties.

Develop Resilience

Stoic principles encourage you to overcome adversity, practice self-control and realize the transient nature of life. By cultivating resilience and patience, you can navigate challenging situations with greater ease.

Practice Gratitude

Expressing gratitude for the blessings in your life can shift focus away from stressors and anxieties, promoting a positive outlook and emotional well-being.

Negatives Of A Stoic Mindset

While there are numerous benefits to adopting a Stoic mindset, it is important to acknowledge potential drawbacks as well and strive to strike a balance.

Overemphasis on stoicism may lead to emotional suppression or detachment from one's feelings, potentially hindering authentic emotional expression or interpersonal relationships.

Excessive focus on maintaining emotional equanimity could result in apathy or indifference toward important issues or causes that require emotional or mental engagement. Stoicism's emphasis on rationality and self-control may limit the depth of emotional connections with others, impacting empathy and understanding in personal or professional relationships.

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Opinion It’s not so ‘terribly strange to be 70’

I turned 70 today, a young age for an older person to be, but it is the oldest I have ever been by a long shot. It has been well over six decades since I learned in arithmetic how to carry the one, and the rest has sped by like microfiche.

One big juicy, messy, hard, joyful, quiet life. That’s what my 70 years have bequeathed me.

In my teens, already drinking and drugging, I didn’t expect to see 21, and at 21, out of control, I didn’t expect to see 30. At 30, I had published three books but, as a sober friend put it, was deteriorating faster than I could lower my standards.

Then at 32, I got clean and sober, the miracle of my life from which all other blessings flow. My son was born three years later. The apple fell close to the tree: My son went off the rails, too. He and his partner had a baby at 19, which had not been in my specific plans for him, but you know the old line: If you want to make God laugh, tell Her your plans.

The baby, soon to get his learner’s permit, turned out to be the gift of a lifetime. My son got clean and sober 13 years ago, and the three of us grew up together. Then after a long search, I met this brilliant, kind writer guy and, three days after I started getting Social Security, I married him. Yesterday, I published my 20th book, called “Somehow.” Today, when I woke up, I was 70. Seventy!

I think that I am only 57, but the paperwork does not back this up. I don’t feel old, because your inside self doesn’t age. When younger people ask me when I graduated from high school and I say 1971, there’s a moment’s pause, as if this is inconceivable and I might as well have said 20 B.C. That’s when I feel my age. But I smile winsomely because, while I would like to have their skin, hearing, vision, memory, balance, stamina and focus, I would not go back even one year.

My older friends and I know a thing or two.

In general, though, I know how little I know. This is a big relief.

I know that my lifelong belief, that to be beyond reproach offers shelter and protection, is a lie. Shelter is an inside job, protection an illusion. We are as vulnerable as kittens. Love fends off the worst of it.

I know now that everyone is screwed up to some degree, and that everyone screws up. Phew. I thought for decades it was just me, that all of you had been issued owner’s manuals in second grade, the day I was home with measles. We are all figuring it out as we go. Aging is grad school.

I know a very little bit about God, or goodness, or good orderly direction. I am a believer, but I don’t trouble myself about ultimate reality, the triune nature of the deity or who shot the Holy Ghost. I say help a lot, and thanks, and are You kidding me??? Have You been drinking again, Friend?

I know about something I will call cloak hope, most obvious to me in the people who swooped in and helped me get sober in 1986, and swooped down again in 2012 for my child. In my case, an elderly sober woman named Ruby saw me in my utter, trembly hopelessness — afraid, smelly and arrogant; she swept in and took me under her wing. She wrapped her cloak around me and was the counternarrative to all I believed at 32, i.e., that I needed to figure things out, especially myself, and who to blame.

I know the beauty of shadows. Shadows show us how life can gleam in contrast. Sunshine might be dancing outside the window, but the wonder is in the variegation, with fat white clouds bunched up on the right casting shadows on the hills and gardens, and brushstrokes of gray clouds on the left and — most magical — the long narrow shawl of fog right across the top of the ridge. The day is saying, Who knows how the weather will morph, but meanwhile so much is possible. And that is life asserting itself.

I know life will assert itself. Knowing this means I have a shot at some measure of pliability, like a willow tree that is maybe having an iffy day.

I know everything is in flux, that all things will turn into other things. I am uncomfortable with this but less so than in younger years. Michael Pollan wrote, “Look into a flower, and what do you see? Into the very heart of nature’s double nature — that is, the contending energies of creation and dissolution, the spiring toward complex form and the tidal pull away from it.” So I don’t sweat feeling a little disoriented some days.

I have grown mostly unafraid of my own death, except late at night when I head to WebMD and learn that my symptoms are probably cancer.

I know and am constantly aware of how much we have all lost and are in danger of losing — I am not going to name names — and am awash with gratitude for lovely, funny things that are still here and still work.

I know how to let go now, mostly, although it is not a lovely Hallmark process, and when well-wishers from my spiritual community exhort me to let go and let God, I want to Taser them. But I know that when I finally tell a best friend of my thistly stuckness, the telling is the beginning of release. You have to learn to let go. Otherwise, you get dragged, or you become George Costanza’s father pounding the table and shouting, “Serenity now!”

I know that people and pets I adore will keep dying, and it will never be okay, and then it will, sort of, mostly. I know the cycle is life, death, new life, and I think this is a bad system, but it is the one currently in place.

I know I will space out and screw up right and left as I head out on this book tour, say things I wish I could take back, forget things, sometimes onstage, and lose things. I just will.

I recently went to Costa Rica, where my husband was giving a spiritual retreat, and I forgot my pants. My pants! And last month, I went to give a talk at a theater two states away and forgot to bring any makeup. I am quite pale, almost light blue in some places — think of someone from “Game of Thrones” with a head cold — and ghostly under bright lights. When I discovered this omission, I was wearing only tinted moisturizer, powder on my nose and light pink lip gloss.

I gave myself an inspiring pep talk on my inner beauty, the light within. And then I had a moment of clarity: I asked the person driving me to the venue to stop at CVS, where I bought blush and a lipstick that was accidentally brighter and glossier than I usually wear. I looked fabulous. Age is just a number when you still know how to shine. And I shone.

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7 ways AI makes life easier on the go

AI is much more than an office tool for desk workers or productivity software for businesses. You can also turn to it for quick answers when you’re out and about, helping you get ideas, information and inspiration wherever you are.

One simple way to use AI is to download Microsoft Copilot on your iOS or Android phone. The free AI tool summarizes information from across the web and generates text and images based on your requests, or “prompts,” making it easier to research, plan and create on the go. Here are seven ways having AI at your fingertips can help you save time and do more with your day.

Learn in real time about the cool things you see

Get cooking inspiration while buying groceries

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Turn your phone into a travel agent

Take the stress out of shopping

Get your chores done faster

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Up your social media game

Get help writing a tricky text or email

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There Is a Part of Modern Life That Is So Essential Armies Should Never Attack It Again

By Peter Fairley

Mr. Fairley is a journalist who has covered power technology and policy for over 20 years.

In late March, after two years of withering attacks on Ukraine, Russia knocked out half of Ukraine’s power supply. Up to that point, Russia’s missiles and kamikaze drones had mostly targeted the Ukrainian substations that push electricity from power plants to consumers. But this time they hit the plants themselves, severely damaging and destroying hydroelectric and fossil fuel stations — all of which are difficult to repair or replace.

When power stops, life grinds to a halt. Lights go out. Sewage treatment stops. Clean water stops. Electric cars, buses and trolleys stop. Elevators stop, trapping older and disabled people. For many, home heating, refrigeration, cooking and clothes washing stops, along with medical devices such as oxygen generators.

Even though the world’s dependence on electricity for all of this and more is growing, power grids are still legitimate military targets, according to both international law and our own military rule book. But there are small, promising signs that could be changing. Early last month, before Russia’s most damaging assaults, the International Criminal Court in The Hague concluded that the country’s pummeling of Ukraine’s power system had already crossed the line and issued arrest warrants for a pair of senior Russian commanders, Adm. Viktor Nikolayevich Sokolov and Lt. Gen. Sergei Ivanovich Kobylash, whose units are accused of launching the missiles. (Russia has denied committing war crimes.)

It was the world’s first prosecution of combatants for attacks on a power grid and an important first step toward recognizing electricity’s growing centrality to modern life. But the global community must now draw bright lines for combatants in future conflicts — and strengthen the hand of future prosecutors — by codifying specific protections for power grids. The international community already attempts to do that for select infrastructure, including hospitals, dams and nuclear power plants, via the Geneva Conventions. It’s time to add power grids to that privileged roster.

For decades, armies have routinely attacked power grids during war. Germany targeted Britain’s grid from zeppelins in World War I, and NATO jets targeted power plants in Serbia in 1999. The civilian fallout from these attacks can be devastating: When the United States knocked out Baghdad’s electricity in 1991 in the Persian Gulf war, water and sewage treatment were disrupted, sparking typhoid and cholera epidemics.

International law is supposed to curb these kinds of attacks; the laws set out in the Geneva Conventions consider power grids “civilian objects,” to be protected in war. But in practice, thanks to myriad exceptions, militaries can justify nearly any attack where anticipated gains outweigh the projected civilian suffering.

Governments often point to electricity’s role in everything from political and military communications to arms manufacturing. According to Russia’s Defense Ministry , the massive strikes last month were necessary because they disrupted enterprises making and repairing “weapons, equipment and ammunition.” But it would seem that the real goal was to terrorize and break the Ukrainian people. Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, said as much while explaining grid attacks in November 2022 that left 10 million people without power: “The unwillingness of the Ukrainian side to settle the problem, to start negotiations, its refusal to seek common ground, this is their consequence.”

In its Department of Defense Law of War Manual updated last year, the United States says that it views power plants as important enough to a state’s military functions “to qualify as military objectives during armed conflicts.” The Pentagon rule book dismisses civilian injuries and deaths caused by blackouts as too “remote” and “myriad” for field commanders to accurately calculate and encourages them to consider only the civilians affected “very soon after the attack,” such as those at a hospital directly connected to a power plant. But even in that case, the manual hews to the general rule for civilian infrastructure, advising American forces to stand down only where the harm of powering down life support will be “excessive” relative to the gains.

Unsurprisingly, even U.S. military experts on the law of armed conflict have taken divergent stands on Russia’s grid attacks in Ukraine, attacks it continued last week. “At least some” violated international law, wrote one . Another found it hard to “definitively” identify a criminal act.

The three-judge International Criminal Court panel said it had “reasonable grounds to believe” that the officers they seek to apprehend committed crimes against humanity. That charge applies to unlawful acts that are widespread or systematic, and Russia’s grid attacks keep intensifying.

Our military began scaling down its attacks on electrical grids over 20 years ago. Gregory Noone — a captain and former judge advocate in the U.S. Navy who has trained government officials in Rwanda, Afghanistan and Russia in the laws of war — told me he saw a shift in U.S. behavior between the Persian Gulf war and the Iraq war. “We, the U.S. military, took great pride in the fact that we turned all the lights off in Baghdad in the first gulf war. We wiped out their electric grid,” Dr. Noone said. But by the time of the Iraq war, “we realized that wasn’t such a good idea.”

Other countries would be wise to follow our lead and reject wholesale attacks on the grid. It would save lives and prevent needless destruction; it would also help build an unwritten (yet enforceable) body of international law constraining power grid attacks.

But the international community can and should go further. A strong grid protection protocol that explicitly limits power system destruction could be a game changer. It would ratchet up the threat of prosecution, potentially deterring bad actors who might otherwise be tempted to target power generators. The International Criminal Court said a desire to stop further attacks prompted it to unseal the warrants for General Kobylash and Admiral Sokolov. The hope is that field officers directing missiles and drones may think twice before they order these kinds of attacks in the future.

While Mr. Putin may never face consequences for plunging Ukraine into darkness, General Kobylash and Admiral Sokolov may never leave Russia, for fear of being picked up outside its borders to face trial. If they do, a reckoning could yet lie ahead for those who would thrust civilians into darkness. Prosecutors who pursue war criminals can keep hunting for decades.

Peter Fairley is a journalist who has covered power technology and policy for over 20 years.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

Stress: Definition and Different Types of Stress Essay

Stress can be defined as any cognitive, emotional, or physical pressure that when built, affects an individual directly or indirectly by influencing his work, work-related, or personal life. At work, stress affects an individual’s performance, either negatively or positively. Negative, when stress provokes depressive or pessimistic stress patterns, whereas positive when stress enables an individual to face and accept challenges. There are various stressors responsible for inducing stress patterns in work and relationships environments. Environmental stressors such as noise, heat, speech, aircraft noise, traffic noise, office noise, etc. The three main types of stress, present in any environment are physical, emotional, and cognitive (psychological). Any of these stresses incur as a result of work overload, repetitive tasks that underestimate individual’s capability, and job mismatch. Problems of work overload are directly or indirectly associated with psychological or physical pressure. For instance, individuals who find themselves in jobs that are ill-suited to their skills, abilities, and training or that do not meet their needs and expectations are likely to experience stress.

Stress impacts human performance, either individually or in teams and depicts a unique relationship between the person and the environment that is judged by the person for his own well-being. This clearly indicates that at work, not all stress is negative. It is stress in teamwork that induces the motivation factor to accept all the challenges that in the longer run evaluates and appraises the individual. At work there are two types of stressors that influence individuals. Ambient or indirect stressors, that is associated as major factors to be a part of the environment or background where the individual works. Direct stressors or performance-related stressors are directly linked to task performance. Performance-related stressors can be minimized by successful task performance. Stress is positive when it is perceived by an individual, for achieving his goals. However, there are certain variables of stress, which are proposed to have a direct impact on the team’s interaction and coordination. Such teamwork stressors that trigger motivation and promote a sense of coordination among teams include workload, team size, team management, and timeliness to accomplish a task.

Stress when relating to performance has remained a critical issue for there are controversies between positive and negative influences of stress. Many believe that individual or team performance is susceptible to the effects of stress as there is a requirement for teams to maintain acceptable performance. This is done by interacting effectively with fellow team members, which also pressurizes the stressed member to maintain his or her own performance. Another critical issue about work stress is its influence on family members, which is usually negative.

Work-family conflict gives rise to a high magnitude of stress transmission, which emotionally affects family members. It would be better to say that work-related stress when remaining unmanaged, induce stress among family members and relationships in a pessimistic manner. Here comes stress in emotion management that works among various relations including family and friends.

Stress in education has enabled us to think towards stress-management training, which has provided us with a useful function to help individuals to recognize the symptoms of stress and to overcome any negativity related to the stress. There are various awareness activities and skills-training programs designed to cope up with stress-related issues. Such techniques have proven useful in helping individuals deal with stressors and accept realities inherent in the work environment.

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The essay "Stress and Its Role in Our Life" is a useful introduction to the topic, but it could benefit from some improvements. The writer tends to repeat information in different ways, which can make the essay feel less concise than it could be. For example, in the introduction, the writer states that "Stress is a natural reaction of the body ...
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Self-nurturing is such "effective way of coping with stress" (Aldwin, 2007). Creating time for fun and relaxing, enhance our ability to copy with life's unending stressors. It is therefore prudent for an individual to engage frequently in healthy ways of relaxing such as, going for a walk, playing with a pet, going adventures, watching ...
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Stress has many negative impacts on our life. Following are the major symptoms of stress. 1- Loss of interest in socializing, 2- Fatigue or lack of sleep, 3- Difficulty in concentrating and thinking, 4- Feeling of guilt and worthlessness, 5- Suicidal thoughts, 6- Lack of appetite, 7- Hair fall and etc.
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April 10, 2024 at 5:45 a.m. EDT. (Video: Andrea Levy for The Washington Post) 7 min. I turned 70 today, a young age for an older person to be, but it is the oldest I have ever been by a long shot ...
Opinion
A Few Words About Nests. April 15, 2024, 5:04 a.m. ET. Margaret Renkl. Share full article. By Margaret Renkl. Ms. Renkl is a contributing Opinion writer who covers flora, fauna, politics and ...
Effects of Stress on Human Health
Stress affects human body, thoughts and feelings, when the above have been affected, then the behaviors and to some extent the personality of an affected person change. When unchecked, stress results in health complications like high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity and diabetes (Ciccarelli & White, 2012).
Stress Positions (2024)
Stress Positions: Directed by Theda Hammel. With John Early, Qaher Harhash, Elizabeth Dement, Theda Hammel. Terry, in strict quarantine in his ex-husband's Brooklyn home, cares for his injured nephew, a 19-year-old Moroccan model named Bahlul, drawing attention from everyone in his life.
7 ways AI makes life easier on the go
One simple way to use AI is to download Microsoft Copilot on your iOS or Android phone. The free AI tool summarizes information from across the web and generates text and images based on your requests, or "prompts," making it easier to research, plan and create on the go. Here are seven ways having AI at your fingertips can help you save ...
Opinion
Guest Essay. An Essential Part of Modern Life That Armies Should Never Attack Again. April 15, 2024, 5:04 a.m. ET. A Ukrainian power plant heavily damaged by recent Russian missile strikes.
Stress: Definition and Different Types of Stress Essay
The three main types of stress, present in any environment are physical, emotional, and cognitive (psychological). Any of these stresses incur as a result of work overload, repetitive tasks that underestimate individual's capability, and job mismatch. Problems of work overload are directly or indirectly associated with psychological or ...