Page 110 - Biblical Counseling II-Textbook

Thus, stress is not just a stimulus or a response. It is the process by which we appraise and cope with
environmental threats and challenges. Stress arises less from events themselves than from how we
appraise them. One person, alone in a house, dismisses its creaking sounds and experiences no stress;
someone else suspects an intruder and becomes alarmed. One person regards a new job as a welcome
challenge; someone else appraises it as risking failure (Myers, 2009).

When short-lived, or when perceived as challenges, stressors can have positive effects. A momentary
stress can mobilize the immune system for fending off infections and healing wounds. Stress also
arouses and motivates us to conquer problems. Championship athletes, successful entertainers, and
great teachers and leaders all thrive and excel when aroused by a challenge. Having conquered cancer
or rebounded from a lost job, some people emerge with stronger self-esteem and a deepened
spirituality and sense of purpose. Indeed, some stress early in life makes us stronger later. Stress can
challenge us. Take a look at the chart below. If you felt stressed before a huge exam, a musical
performance, a challenging physical task, you can try to control how you perceive the stressor (Myers,
2009). (photo: relaxlikeaboss.com)

But stressors can also threaten us. And experiencing severe or prolonged stress may harm us. Children’s
physiological responses to severe child abuse put them at later risk of chronic disease. Those who had
post-traumatic stress reactions to heavy combat in the Vietnam war went on to suffer greatly elevated
rates of circulatory, digestive, respiratory, and infectious diseases (Myers, 2009).

The Stress Response System
In the 1920s Walter Cannon confirmed that the stress response is part of a unified mind-body system.
This is but one part of the sympathetic nervous system’s response. When alerted by any of a number of
brain pathways, the sympathetic nervous system increases heart rate and respiration, diverts blood
from digestion to the skeletal muscles, dulls pain, and releases sugar and fat from the body’s stores – all
to prepare the body for the wonderfully adaptive response that Cannon called fight or flight (Myers,
2009).

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