Stress: Anxiety and Stress Response Essay

Submitted By nikabaker1
Words: 1584
Pages: 7

Stress

We as human beings experience stress every single day, whether its good stress or bad stress. No one’s life is free of stress. No matter how sensible, intelligent, or privileged you are. Throughout our lives we will be challenged by frustration, losses, changes and conflicts. Dealing with my own battles with stress, I am a granddaughter of a victim of stress. My grandmother died from symptoms of stress, her Heart exploded. My grandma was a very nice and humble lady. As a housewife, her duties were always completed to the “T”.
Many things agitated her like when my grandpa would bring home pizza after she cooked, or when the kids destroyed the living and dining rooms knowing they were not allowed in those areas. I remember when things weren’t going accordingly, my grandma would go outside and smoke a cigarette. I would always ask why she smoked and her response was always, “it calms my nerves” I hated to see her smoking because I knew it was from stress and I also learned that it can cause cancer. Being that my grandmother was always under stress she developed a lot of health issues leading to her death, first she was diagnosed with high blood pressure, months after that she had a stroke, and months after that she had a mild heart attack.
My grandmother had many complications with her health because she was never able to control her stress level. She didn’t have time to meditate or to do none of the things that reduces a person’s stress level; she was always preparing food, cleaning, handling kids and more. My grandfather wasn’t the best husband and my grandma did not believe in getting a divorce, it was against her religion, so sticking around even when she didn’t want to caused a lot of stress and misery. Everyday was a battle for her, she never really took much care of her health, it was always about my grandfather and her children.
In result of not knowing how stress can affect a humans’ health in such a terrible way, my grandmother was unaware of the outcome, she did not know how serious it was. Until one day she was doing her daily routine, and she passed out. She was rushed to the hospital, was being treated and carefully evaluated. As she was about to be released, something went terribly wrong, she had to be flown to another hospital to get better care for her issue and on her way there her heart erupted. I chose this topic because I can relate to it and most importantly everyone around me has experienced some form of stress.
“Stress is the leading killer in America,” whether people believe it or not. Stress leads to life threatening symptoms. Everyone is a victim. Many people may ask, what it stress? How does it affect your life? How can you prevent stress? There are many different types of stress, some people stress
more than others, and some people have special ways of dealing with it. After reading this you’ll will be educated on stress through my research.
What is stress? “Stress starts off as a feeling and a reaction to certain situations. Its the body’s way of making you more alert and getting ready to take on a challenge. Stress could feel like butterflies in your stomach, cranky, headache, hard to concentrate, or jumpy.” For example a big test is coming up, you may think that stress happens in your mind, but actually research shows that your entire body can be affected by stress. “When you encounter a perceived threat or placed in a stressful situation the hypothalamus; a tiny region at the base of your brain, sets off an alarm system in your body through a combination of nerve and hormonal signals. This system prompts your adrenal glands located atop your
Kidneys’ to release a surge of hormones, including adrenaline and Cortisol. Adrenaline increases your heart-rate which elevates your blood pressure and boost energy supply. Cortisol the primary stress hormone increases sugar glucose in your bloodstream. This natural reaction the stress response and it could help us out in a very critical