Stress in Modern Life and Its Consequences - Essay Example

Stress in Modern Life and Its Consequences The of the Stress in Modern Life and Its Consequences Introduction Modern life is significantly different compared to the past one, primarily due to its accelerated rhythm with its results in both physical and mental stress. Many people have quite successfully adapted or are adapting to constant changes of contemporary world. Still there are some of them for whom today’s being is full of stresses, which cause a wide range of health problems. In fact, humans’ personal life with its numerous problems is a major source of tension of nervous system. Consequently, this reflects in stress and concomitant diseases. A person’s immediate surround has many stressful factors, among which there can be distinguished three main areas serving as a source of stress, namely: family, university, and money. Facing the need of a continual solution of numerous questions and problems associated with family, university and money, people stay in a constant state of nervous tension, which eventually overgrows into stress or more serious medical problems. University Stress “Of course, not all stress is caused by external factors. Stress can also be self-generated…” (Smith et al., 2015), for stressful situations happen around humans as well as inside of them. Everything is interdependent in people’s life, and different drivers of stress are not an exception in this regard. Just so the first type of stress, university stress, may include numerous reasons of personal character, such as challenges of learning process, family problems, relationship problems, lack of money, drug use or misuse, and so on. Most people believe that stress causes only negative effects without consideration of the aspect that “Stress is able to stimulate men’s activities as it increases their energy potential and aggravates feelings and emotions” (Shah & Shah, 2015), which is extremely useful during public speaking or a defense of some kind of research study, for example. Nevertheless, if to talk about unhappy circumstances, which present in students’ life during a particular period of time, then they bring only negative effects of stress at physiological and psychological levels, such as general physical strain and excitement (that makes all internals to function in an emergency mode), anxiety, oppression, dissatisfaction, aggression. All these factors are complicated by troubling feelings, challenging searches of escaping from the situation, and finally avert students’ thoughts from the learning process and make the whole situation of numerous stressful factors to unite in one huge stress without its visible solution. As a result, university learners find themselves in extremely intricate knot staying under the totally negative influence of steady stress, which causes different complications, that is, “nervous exhaustion”, “chronic fatigue syndrome”, and adverse psychophysiological reactions, including “nervous pains”, “heart disease, and stress ulcer” (Seskevich, 2007). All in all, university stress appears to be very dangerous for students’ health, being the mixture of psychological problems (nervous strain, rueful feelings) and physical destruction, as a result of substance use in useless attempts to overcome stress in such a way. Family Stress The next type of stress or the factor causing stress is family. It is well-known that family is a main value for most people, so it is not surprising that it is that very issue rousing so strong emotional experience on the topic of maintaining key components for the success and happiness of family life. In this respect there are some challenges which can trigger stress, namely: relationship problems, lack of children, financial constraints, and loss of job. Naturally, different aspects touch men and women’s emotions in a different way. Still, both males and females are preoccupied by all mentioned challenges, if only they belong to that type of humans for whom family and its emotional and financial support is extremely important. Family troubles occur day by day, minute by minute, and they all need a solution, that keeps parents in a constant nervous strain. Moreover, such a state directly influences emotions of every member of a family, and what is more important it manipulates children’s feelings. Unfortunately, “Individual stress can affect the entire family” (Schulz) engaging its members in emotional disorder. In this view the reason of stress is even of no matter, since stress anyway ruffles each and everyone in the family. As for the case when a couple is unable to have children, it also costs extremely negative experience, which results in family stress. Moreover, visualization of a stressor exacerbates the whole stressful situation. Another question is work problems with their different peculiarities, from some severities at work to loss of job. One way or another, financial aspect is of a great importance for families, which have particular responsibilities for support and comfort of their members. “Money is one of the most common sources of stress and worry among families” (Fessler, 2010). With reference to all aspects of family stress, mentioned above, it is clear now that it is the very reason of appearance or recurrence of numerous physical and psychological health problems, which happen within families and cause further decline of the situation. And it is commonly known that remaining challenges make not serious stress to overgrow in chronic one with all its consequences. Money Stress The third stress factor is connected with money problems and their effect on people’s physical and emotional health. In fact, financial uncertainty and financial inability are two main reasons causing stress. Even though they say that rich people also experience stress, people “… with lower incomes are more prone to stress than those with higher incomes” (Rawes, 2015). Naturally, people have particular responsibilities for financial support of their lives and probably back up the being of someone else. So their concernment in the case of lacking money is reasonable. Modern life is characterized by its great competitiveness in the area of employment, and there are not so rare examples of people’s problems with appropriate placement in well-paid work or misfortunes of job loss at all. This all has a negative effect on humans’ financial state as well as hurts their mental health in a bad way, in particular by decreasing their self-esteem. As a result such a stressful situation envenoms life at both physical and mental levels that is resulted in different medical problems, where the most serious one is heart attack. “If the stress is chronic and the adrenaline “rush” persists for a long period of time, that increased heart rate and blood pressure, as well as other unspecified factors related to adrenaline, can cause arterial damage by promoting plaque formation in the coronary arteries” (Whayne, 2013). Even restricted incomes are able to worsen people’s health, as constant thinking of this issue multiplied by thoughts about inability to provide health care can make people sick. Moreover, “Money problems cause stress that causes physical symptoms and even health complications. But those who stress about money problems may even neglect their health care to save the money they are so stressed about, which in turn causes other, additional stresses (health-related, etc.)” (Rawes, 2015). Though, there is a probability of financial problems as a stimulator for further development and financial growth, which can influence men’s emotions in a positive way by serving as an agitator for necessary movements towards wealth. This is where the controversy of stress nature is hidden. Still almost all mentioned things underline mainly harmful effect of money stress on people’s health. Health Problems Caused by Stress Stressed out individuals are at a higher risk of having health problems than non-stressed ones. In this respect heart attack and obesity are among most serious diseases and other complications for health, triggered by stress. The whole cause-and-effect link is simple: stress brings negative emotions and nervous strain – both factors are the reason for heart disease and people’s desire to ease nerves by the means of so-called comfort eating. One way or another, these problems have become almost common during the last three decades in the UK and the USA. Surely, there are numerous possible reasons and factors influencing overweight and heart attack. But if to consider a question in the context of modern life’s stressfulness, then aggravating of the issue is probably determined by exceedingly high emotional tension of contemporary world. According to statistic data, “146,000 people have a heart attack every year and 94,000 of them die” (Senior, 2010) in the UK, while “452,327: the number of deaths due to heart attacks in the United States in the year 2004” (Clayson, 2007). Someone may say that these figures are of no value for the research of the problem due to the absence of strong grounds between stress and heart diseases. Still our strong belief is that stress cannot pass without any negative aftereffect for heart health, for it causes increase in arterial pressure negatively influencing cardiac function. Thus, high rates of heart attack cases may serve as an argument proving the fact of a stressful status of modern life and its detrimental effect on people’s health. As for obesity, the whole seriousness of the situation just shocks. “The study which looks at data from 1980 to 2013, claims that more people in the UK are either obese or overweight than at any other time in the past three decades” as well as in the USA the prevalence of both obesity and overweight has increased by 16 % and resulted in 82% in 2013 compared to 66 % in 1980 (Sedghi, 2014). Emotional eating is a well-known consequence of stress with its further overgrowth into adiposity. Failures push people to look for a source of joy, comfort, and support, and frequently it becomes food. Dissatisfaction with personal life, resulted from internal and external stresses, is another factor that makes humans to ‘eat’ negative emotions and experiences. As we can see, the problem is almost general and wide-spread. Definitely, comfort eating comes alongside with original disposition to fattiness, but talking about numerous stressful situations of present time, it becomes clear that obesity is may be seen as one of the indirect consequences of modern stressful life. Conclusion To sum it up, modern life is full of stressful factors, which worsen people’s being. Although many men have adapted to frantic pace of the world, still there are many those who are not able to overcome stress, which may change their being and life of their surrounding in a negative way. High levels of stress are resulted in numerous exacerbated health conditions and diseases, including such serious health risks as heart attack and obesity. Degradation of the situation underlines the necessity of timely prevention of development of illnesses triggered by stressful rhythm of modern life. Another urgent need is stimulating of people’s ability to manage stress in any situation and not to allow its further mass development into more complex health diseases. References Clayson, M. (2007). Heart attack statistics. Ezine Articles. Retrieved 13 May from: http://ezinearticles.com/?Heart-Attack-Statistics&id=461293 Fessler, W. (2010). Reducing family stress. Retrieved 13 May from: http://www.familyfunshop.com/reducingfamilystress.htm Rawes, E. (2015). 3 facts you should know about money and stress. Cheat Sheet. Retrieved 13 May from: http://www.cheatsheet.com/personal-finance/3-facts-you-should-know-about-money-and-stress.html/?a=viewall Schulz, D. Family transition: adaptation to stress. Missions Resource Network. Retrieved 13 May from: http://www.mrnet.org/system/files/library/family_transition.pdf Sedghi, A. (2014). How obese is the UK? And how does it compare to other countries? The Guardian. Retrieved 13 May from: http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/may/29/how-obese-is-the-uk-obesity-rates-compare-other-countries Senior, K. (2010). Facts and figures: heart disease in the UK. Cardiac Matters. Retrieved 13 May from: http://www.cardiacmatters.co.uk/facts-figures-heart-disease-uk.html Seskevich, J. (2007). A guide to coping with health problems and stress. Duke University Health System. Retrieved 13 May from: http://www.managestressnow.com/PDF/copingwithhealthproblems.pdf Shah, K., & Shah, P. (2015). Academic stress taking a toll on management. Post graduates: a myth of reality. Impact Journals, Vol. 3 (2), 11-22. Retrieved 13 May from: http://oaji.net/articles/2015/490-1428566574.pdf Smith, M., Segal, R. & Segal, J. (2015). Stress Symptoms, Signs, and Causes. Help guide Organization. Retrieved 13 May from: http://www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/stress-symptoms-causes-and-effects.htm Whayne, T. F. (2013). Reduce stress and heart attack risk. University of Kentucky News. Retrieved 13 May from: http://uknow.uky.edu/content/reduce-stress-and-heart-attack-risk Read More