Definition of Stress Outlined

Stress is an emotion experience that has a bi-fold nature. This means that stress has both positive and negative features. While some amount of stress is absolutely necessary for our survival, the experience of stress beyond a threshold point, may turn out to be exhaustive and sometimes life-threatening.

Stress is a critical concept and there are wide numbers on the definition of stress, documented in different psychology and medical journals. The definition of stress has different shades and different perspectives.

Stress as Separation Anxiety

When stress is perceived as an outcome of separation anxiety, we can define it as an emotional response, occurring as a result of early separation from mother. Stress as separation anxiety, may lead to the development of depression and substance abuse in adult life.

Stress as Post Traumatic Reaction

The definition of stress occurring as a result of post traumatic reaction, is explained as post traumatic stress disorder, which is characterized by an intense fear regarding personal safety without any specific cause, recurrent thoughts of traumatic events, nightmares and poor quality sleep, feeling of detachment, emotional numbness, etc.

Stress as Biopsychosociological Reaction

The definition of stress as a biopsychosociological reaction is first explained by Hans Selye, an Austro-Canadian endocrinologist. In his explanation, he adopted a stress model, popularly known as General Adaptation Syndrome or GAS model during 1936. He explained that the stimuli of stress or stressors, are perceived through three individual stages – alarm, resistance and exhaustion. While stress is perceived at alarm stage, the body breaks down during exhaustion stage.

Stress as Eustress and Distress

In 1974, this definition of stress was proposed by Richard Lazarus, a psychology professor and cognitive-mediational theorist from the University of California. In this definition stress was explained as either of two types – eustress or distress. While the definition of eustress suggests a perception of healthy stress, distress is characterized by an unhealthy one.

In the definition of eustress, all the good stress experiences are documented such as preparing for examination, meeting a goal, marriage, buying a new property, receiving the news of promotion, etc. On the other hand, the same event can be listed under distress if those incidents are perceived from a different angle, say, taking excessive pressure before an examination.

There are many other definitions of stress, but the above definitions are widely known by many people around the world. Since the understanding of stress needs an in-depth study, the definition of stress can be too complicated and this information is meant to give a general overview of the definition of stress.