Stress [antikvár]

That Keyed-up Feeling For one of the couple at left a ride on a roller coaster is sheer delight —an exhilarating experience to be sought and savored for its own sake. For the other, clearly, it is an experience that almost brings panic. At the end of the ride, the man might very well say, "That was fun. Let's do it again someday." The woman might reply, "No, never. Once was enough for a lifetime!" So far the situation seems ordinary enough. Two different people have had different emotional and behavioral responses to the same stressful experience of noise and swooping speed. What is not obvious is that, in one respect, they have had much the same response. Certain reactions inside their bodies have been almost identical. The ride, whether it was intensely enjoyable or intensely unpleasant, led to a characteristic pattern of physical changes. In both persons their hearts raced and pounded, and their blood pressures soared. A flood of hormones stimulated some organs and depressed the activity of others. Their breathing quickened, and their muscles tensed. These are the body's basic physiological reactions to stress. Other automatic reactions may vary, but these are always essentially the same, whatever the stress—good or bad, welcome or unwelcome. To a scientist, stress is any action or situation that places special physical or psychological demands upon a person—anything that can unbalance his individual equilibrium. And while the physiological response to such demands is surprisingly uniform, the forms of stress are innumerable. A divorce is sti'essful—but so is a marriage. Getting fired is stressful—but so is getting a promotion. Stress may even be all but unconscious, like the noise of a city or the daily chore of driving a car. Perhaps the one incontestable statement that can be made about stress is that it belongs to everyone—to businessmen and professors, to mothers and their children, to factory workers, garbagemen and writers. A keyed-up feeling is part of the fabric of life. Today, widely accepted ideas about stress are challenged by new 7