Page 111 - Biblical Counseling II-Textbook

There are alternatives to fight or flight. One is a common response to the stress of a loved one’s death:
withdraw. Pull back. Conserve energy. Faced with an extreme disaster, such as a ship sinking, people
become paralyzed by fear. Another stress response, especially common among women, is to seek and
give support: tend and befriend. Facing stress, men more often than women tend to socially withdraw,
turn to alcohol, or become aggressive. Women more often respond to stress by nurturing and staying
together. Oxytocin, a stress-moderating hormone is released during human, and animal, interaction.
This can help reduce stress levels (Myers, 2009).

Hans Seyle saw the way the body adapts to stress as general adaptation syndrome (GAS). He felts stress
has three phases. Let’s say you suffer a physical or emotional trauma. In Phase 1, you experience an
alarm reaction due to the sudden activation of your sympathetic nervous system. Your heart rate
zooms. Blood is diverted to your skeletal muscles. You feel the faintness of shock. With your body
alerted to stress, you are now ready to fight the challenge during Phase 2, resistance. Your temperature,
blood pressure, and rapid breathing remain high, and there is a sudden outpouring of hormones. If
persistent, the stress may eventually deplete your body’s reserves during Phase 3, exhaustion. With
exhaustion, you are more vulnerable to illness or even, in extreme cases, collapse and death. Few
medical experts today argue with Selye’s basic point: Although the human body comes designed to
cope with temporary stress, prolonged stress can produce physical deterioration. The brain’s
production of new neurons slows (Myers, 2009). Here are some ways you and others may react to
stress:

What events provoke stress responses? Research has focused on our responses to three types of
stressors: catastrophes, significant life changes and daily hassles (Myers, 2009). I’ve listed one example
in each stressor. Write your own examples next to mine.

Catastrophe: an earthquake in a community
Signifanct life changes: moving to a new city
Daily hassles: traffic
What factors affect our ability to cope with stress?

110