STRESS

Problem. What causes you to feel sick when an illness strikes?

Background. There is a great difference between feeling sick and being sick. Being sick means that some part of the body is being damaged by an infection, a wound, or a deficiency of some kind.

Feeling sick is different. When you feel sick you have a headache, a fever, or some other discomfort. You feel this way when you are getting any of a number of diseases.

Explanation. Dr. Hans Selye noticed that sick people generally complain of the same symptoms when they first contract a disease. Selye wondered what causes these symptoms and why they were similar for so many diseases.

After years of research, he discovered that these feelings of sickness have many causes. They are not limited to physical causes. Emotional factors seem to cause many of the same symptoms. Fear, excitement, anger, or great enthusiasm can cause the symptoms as easily as a cold virus. Selye called all these causes stress.

He performed many experiments on rats. In each, he subjected a group of rats to intense cold, or a virus, or a frustrating situation, and certain reactions developed. The most noticeable were stomach disorders, an enlarged adrenal cortex, and shrunken lymph structures.

Selye realized that these three reactions  could be caused by any stress. Continued stress, however, brought about a second reaction; the internal symptoms disappeared! In cases where there was no disease, but there was stress, the body apparently was able to adjust to the stress and continue to function efficiently. Selye concluded that the body can accustom itself to stress and, if the stress is not too severe, can continue to function.

Selye also found that rats cannot tolerate stress forever. If stress is too severe, they eventually die. Fortunately, people are seldom required to tolerate such extreme degrees of stress.

Most people often experience the first two reactions to stress. Your feeling of sickness when you are first catching cold is your reaction to stress.

You have often experienced the second phase of the stress reaction, too. Remember when you got your "second wind" during a tiring game or long period of activity? That was an adaptation to stress.

Today, doctors are finding out more and more about Dr. Selye’s concept of stress. The more they learn, the better they can treat patients who are experiencing one of the three degrees of stress.

Emotions Affect the Body

Emotional life. Have you ever broken out in a cold sweat, blushed deeply, or felt "butterflies" in your stomach? If you have, you have noticed a typical reaction to strong emotion–the physical effects of emotions. In your teen-age years you are likely to react more emotionally to events than your younger brothers and sisters or your parents. Part of this increased feeling is due to the adjustments you are making to the changes in your body and to the changes in your responsibilities.

Whenever you feel a strong emotion, such as fear, embarrassment, anger, or joy, the organs in your body react. A cold sweat, a blush, and a "nervous stomach" are evidence that the sweat glands, blood vessels, and stomach are reacting to the emotions. These three reactions to emotion are evidence that there is a link between the brain and each of the organs involved. The link between the emotions and the organs of the body is the autonomic nervous system. The nervous system connects the brain with the skin, stomach, intestines, heart, and blood vessels, as well as with the glands of the body.

Whenever you feel a strong emotion, the message is transmitted to certain parts of the body and physical reactions occur.

Physical reactions to stress. Everyone has physical reactions when he feels a strong emotion. The physical reactions are the body’s way of preparing to meet an emergency. However, if the strong emotion lasts longer than a few hours, the physical reactions become harmful to the body. In cases in which people are under great emotional tension for long periods of time, their stomachs may develop ulcers, or sores, due to the prolonged increase in stomach acidity. Ulcers are common body reactions to chronic, or greatly prolonged emotional tension. Other common reactions to chronic emotional stress are high blood pressure, skin allergies, asthma, and excess weight.

It is fortunate that the periods of emotional stress and strain during the teen years are relatively short. Teenagers who develop healthy ways to cope with their emotions do not develop these physical reactions to chronic emotional strain. Probably they handle their emotions so successfully that they are seldom subjected to emotional stresses for long periods of time.