Stress, and its role in illness
One can find many definitions for stress. The one I believe that fits out series best is "The sum of the biological reactions to any adverse stimulus, physical, mental or emotional, internal or external, that tends to disturb a person's normal state of well-being." We would like to find out how stress impacts various illnesses. We expect an adverse impact - after all, we all "know" how bad stress is for us!
We are all stressed in one way or another. We rush to work, try to meet deadlines, rush home, take care of children and parents, interact with spouses, colleagues, neighbors, grab a few hours sleep - and we start again on this never ending cycle. We move to new workplaces, divorce, marry, have children, lose loved ones, lose our job, start a new one and worry about terror attacks. Who can take this all without feeling the adverse impact of these lifelong pressures on our mental and physical being?
Many people believe that stress leads to suffering from depression, coronary disease, alcoholism, drug addictions, overeating, insomnia, high blood pressure, chest pain, stomach problems, irregular heartbeat, and many other ailments. Some instances of violence and anger are thought to be related to stress. Stress reduction is a major goal in many employer-provided programs. Searching the web, you will find many techniques such as acupuncture, meditation, behavioral modification, breathing exercises, yoga, going to your favorite entertainment, as well more dubious herbal supplements and medication.
It turns out that the actual research of the impact of stress is not easy. Ideally we would like to compare the health of people who are identical in all aspects, except that one group is stressed, and the other group isn't. We would also like to know whether people with a higher level of stress are more adversely impacted. The problems here are twofold:
It is very difficult to rigorously determine which people are stressed and which people are not stressed in a homogeneous population.
There is no universally accepted way of scoring the degree of stress.
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Last Modification - August 12, 2004
Epilogue update - 28 October, 2005