Acute Stress Vs Chronic Stress

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Stress can be defined in two forms, Eustress and Distress. Eustress is a positive form of stress for the human body, it motivates and helps the body to focus on the task at hand. Distress on the other hand, is a negative form of stress and can cause anxiety, decreases performance, and makes it difficult for one to be motivated. There are two different types of distress, acute stress, and chronic stress. Acute stress can be described as the most common and most exhausting form of stress on the human body. “It comes from demands and pressures of the recent past and anticipated demands and pressures of the near future.” (apa.org) Acute stress is a form of temporary stress, luckily its symptoms don’t last long. Although, there is such thing as …show more content…

However, people who undergo chronic stress tend to develop unhealthy eating habits, or start smoking to help cope with stress. In which case stress can lead to lung cancer. Chronic stress has been found to be one of the main causes of depression. Since people tend to undergo situations that they feel they may “never get out of” this results in an easy way to fall into depression. Because people with depression tend to isolate themselves, research has shown that low levels of social interaction can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. As chronic disease shuts down the immune system, it makes it difficult to recover from any form of illness.
Time and time again we see people who seem healthy, young, and in their prime suddenly die. This occurrence caught the eye of scientists in japan who discovered that these sudden heart attacks and strokes were quickly linked to stress. It’s obvious that piles and piles of work can cause stress, but too much can result in heart attacks and …show more content…

When looking at the arteries of macaque monkeys, those under significant stress have more clogged arteries. This prevents blood from getting to the heart quickly during stress which results in heart attacks. The brain can also be affected, when looking at mice exposed to stress, there is dramatically smaller brain cells with fewer branch extensions than normal mice. This is particularly prevalent in the areas associated with memory and learning. Which makes sense as to why all those late night study sessions weren’t as affective as we hoped them to be. Acute stress and sleep deprivation make it increasingly difficult to remember the things we want

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