Can Stress Kill Essay

Stress In this essay I will be talking about stress, what it is, what causes it, the coping methods and what illnesses are related to stress and answering the question; can stress kill?

Stress is one of those terms that is frequently used but is very difficult to define. The dictionary defines stress as; pressure, tension and strain. (The Oxford Popular dictionary & thesaurus 1996) This definition is correct however a more complex definition of stress is: The condition that results when the person–environment transaction lead the individual to perceive a discrepancy, whether real or not, between the demands of a situation and the resources of the

There is a lot of research evidence to suggest that people who have higher levels of stressful events in their lives have higher levels of illness. At the extreme end if the scale populations which are exposed to earthquakes, nuclear accidents and war, show higher rates of sudden cardiac death at the time of the disasters, over a long period of time levels of depression, cancer and heart disease may be increased. At a more minor end of the scale, students coming up to their exams and people reporting more stressful life events generally have been shown to have higher rates of colds and other infections. People in long-term stress situations are more likely to suffer from stress, for example people working with Alzheimer’s patients have been found to have slower healing rates and also show other suppressed immune systems. Stress has been linked to coronary heart disease, ulcers, diabetes, digestive disorders and although it hasn’t yet been proved or directly linked there has been a great deal of research into the relationship between stress and cancer. Also statistics show that