Mental Health Care

Stress is a major contributor, either directly or indirectly, to a number of physical and psychological health problems. Stress-even in a short burst-can lead to disturbing physiological disorders, involving specific body organs, ranging from minor ailments like tension headaches, stiff shoulders, a bad neck, migraine, backache, and chronic pain. It can also lead to palpitations, muscle twitches, diarrhoea, constipation, worsening of pimples, eczema, rash and other skin conditions, disturbed sleep, and a host of psychological and behavioural symptoms.

However, it is the chronic stress which produces serious problems. Selye proposed a three-stage model of the stress response, which he termed the general adaptation syndrome. The three stages in this model are alarm, resistance, and exhaustion. The alarm stage is a generalized state of arousal during the body’s initial response to stress. In the resistance stage, the body adapts to the stress and continues to resist it with a high level of physiological arousal. When the stress persists for a long time, and the body is chronically overactive, resistance fails and the body moves to the exhaustion stage. In this stage, the body is vulnerable to disease.

Studies have linked chronic stress to a number of major physical illnesses: including chronic fatigue, high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, and coronary heart disease, ulcers and irritable bowel disease, skin. conditions, and some forms of cancers. It can also trigger attacks of asthma, and worsen other illnesses.

The body’s resistance fails, since the immune system is also hit. The T-lymphocyte white blood cells-the natural policemen of the body-that catch and kill the body-raiding bacteria and viruses, and the macrophages that gobble them up, go into a phase of relative inactivity increasing the body’s susceptibility to infection.

The effect is most apparent on the mental health. People who experience a high level of stress for a long time-and who cope poorly with this stress-may become irritable, socially withdrawn, and emotionally unstable. They may also have difficulty concentrating and solving problems and may take to alcoholism and drug abuse. Some people under intense and prolonged stress may be ill with extreme anxiety, and suffer from eating disorders, insomnia, or depression. They may suffer from generalized anxiety disorder, phobias, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder-all anxiety related disorders which may be propelled by stress. Continual stress also increases the risk of accidental deaths and suicides.

Sometimes, severe acute stress such as following a cataclysmic event can also lead to an anxiety disorder called ‘post-traumatic stress disorder’ in people who survive the catastrophe. They often appear emotionally numb, and reexperience the traumatic event again and again in dreams and in disturbing memories or flashbacks during the day. Many people who saw their loved ones die in Bhuj, or lived on following the terrorist attack of 9/11 on the twin towers in New York continue to be haunted by this disorder.

Unless managed appropriately, stress is a deadly killer. The secret of managing stress lies in developing simple coping mechanisms, learning to flow with it, and conquering it with mental techniques­strategies.

Share This