Definition of stress in psychology

Stress is type of feeling of tension in our body. We feel angry, frustrated and nervous. Stress has become a serious concern in present age. Its effect on the health is resulting into various psychological and physiological disorders in body. In present age various health problems like blood pressure, heart attack, diabties, migrain are some leading causes.

Many psychologists have defined stress in their own sentences. Some of them are below:

Selye's Definition of stress in psychology: Stress is am excessive burning of resources in our body.

Berne's and Wordworth's Definition of stress in psychology: Stress as a state of strain, whether physical or psychological.

Harry Gaterfeld Definition of stress in psychology: Any interference which which disturb the function of organism at any level and produce a situation natural for organism to avoid.

So, From the above definitions of stress in psychology it is clear that stress works at both levels physiological as well as psychological. It means that in stress a person has to utilize its body and mind more than the normal routine.

Salye has described stress well in his stress model called General Adaption Syndrome (GAS) under three stages:

Alarm Reaction Stage of stress in psychology: In this stage of stress in psychology all biological defense mechanisms are alarmed by the activation of autonomic nervous system. Psychological change that produce energy gets activated.

Resistance Stage of stress in psychology: All biological resources are activated to their maximum capacities to resist the stress. This include the psychological changes like in blood pressure, sugar level, hormone level, heartbeat etc. Thus in this stage of stress in psychology individual makes maximum attempts to central stress and avails his all capacities to resist stress.

Exhaustion stage of stress in psychology: If stress continues then resources starts to deplete and the person loses its ability to resist stress. This may lead to weakness and death.

These all stages of stress in psychology are give by selye at physiological level but they are also applicable at psychological level.

At first stage of stress in psychology the alertness and arousal of brain takes place and cognitive process activated like thinking, reasoning, memory etc.
In second stage of stress in psychology the individual utilize all caping strategies to resist to the stress but if stress continues then maladaptine behavioral reactions appears.
Individual uses defense mechanism with continuous stress then then at 3rd stage of exhaustion the cognitive functioning starts to disorganise with excessive use of defence mechanism.

Definition of stress in psychology