Stress-Related Diseases - Who’s at Risk ?
Everybody will experience stress during his or her life span. Stress is defined as something that overpowers our ability to cope with the event. In a recent survey, 89 percent of those who retorted supposed they have experienced solemn stress during their life.
Many circumstances have an effect on the way we react to stress and increase our susceptibility to it. Personality, early childhood experiences, genetic traits, and diseases such as arthritis and eczema can affect the way we deal with stress.
Events in our early childhood may cause enduring injury to our capability to cope with stress. The hypothalamus -pituitary system controls stress and it can be damaged by childhood abuse and impinge on the way we cope with stress. If a child is raised in an atmosphere of constant stress and anxiety, they are more at risk of stress related diseases.
Fears and anxieties from early childhood can carry through to our adult life and cause us to act in response to events that may not affect someone who has had a calm, peaceful, serene childhood.
Increased susceptibility can come from personality traits we are born with. We may over-respond to certain stressful events. A genetic abnormality can cause us to react to stress because of an abnormal serotonin regulation. Serotonin is a brain chemical that regulates our feeling of console or comfort. Serotonin production gives us a feeling of happiness and pursues away the negative feelings. When serotonin production is reduced, the brain will respond faster to anything seen as a threat to our health or safety.
Individuals who have a higher risk are young adults, working mothers, and women in general, the unemployed, city dwellers, and people who live one-off lives. People who are told apart or descriminated because of their race or sex also are at higher risk. The unemployed individuals, the widows or widowers, divorced men and women, and those living without reasonable health assurance are also at high risk of stress related diseases.
Many things will put in to our risk of developing stress related problems. Children may have lower stress hormones if they have been loved and looked after by their parents. Depression within the immediate family is powerful stressors that can affect stress levels in children and will carry through into adulthood. Both boys and young women have equal amounts of stress but the sources may vary for each one. Young women are more prone to be stressed about personal relationships and are more likely to lead to depression. Boys react to poor grades, changing schools, or the loss of a father figure in their lives.
Another group who are at high risk for stress related conditions are those who are caregivers of sick family members. Combining care giving with a inadequate or limited income, living alone with the patient, and having a difficult relationship with the patient, and the risks proportionately go up. Caregivers have a range of stress-related problems including poorer immunity, heart disease, and depression. Studies show that wives suffer more from stress in caring for a loved one than husbands.
