What is stress? Stress is not a new phenomenon, it has been experienced throughout history. Stress is a biological response to some stimulus. Fear, panic, anger, tragedy and especially pressure can cause it. Stress can result in the competitiveness needed to succeed in business, relationships, sports, and education. Is stress bad or good? It is both. Good stress is manageable stress an can actually heighten your performance in certain situations. Bad stress is unmanageable stress and lessens your performance because it's too much to bare.

Police work, by its nature, calls for an incredible amount of continual stress. The demands on police officers to show greater restraint has been increasing over the years and has increas

There are three basic strategies for dealing with stress at the source. The first strategy is altering situations to make them less stressful. Avoiding stressful situations is the next strategy. Accepting stressful situations is the other basic strategy in dealing with stress at the source. Each strategy has it's disadvantages and it's advantages. It's up to every person to decide which one to use with which situation.

Some behavioural signs of stress are avoiding things, doing things to extremes, administrative problems, and legal problems. Avoiding things includes keeping to one's self, avoiding work, having trouble accepting responsibility, and neglecting responsibility. Examples of doing things to extremes are alcoholism, gambling, spending sprees, and sexual promiscuity. Some administrative problems are being late to work, poor appearance, poor personal hygiene, and being accident prone. Possible legal problems are shoplifting, traffic tickets, and an inability to control violent impulses.

Police suicide is more directly linked to relationship problems which in turn is linked to job stresses. Of the last fourteen suicides of police officers in New York City eighty-six percent had just had a divorce or relationship break-up. Police officers going through a divorce are five times more likely to commit suicide than officers who have a stable relationship. Relationship problems are highly related to job stress. In fact, studies have called police work to be a "high risk" lifestyle not because of physical danger, but high risk in developing attitude problems, behavioural problems, drug problems, and intimacy and relationship problems. These studies also show that police suffer from a substantially higher divorce rate ranging from sixty to seventy percent higher than normal couples.

Acute stress is the most common type of stress. Acute stress comes from demands and pressures of the recent past and anticipated demands and pressures of the near future. Acute stress can lead to psychological distress, tension headaches, upset stomach, and other symptoms. Some examples of stressors that can cause acute stress are, an auto accident that crumpled the car fender, the loss of an important contract, a child's occasional problems at school and so on. Acute stress doesn't have enough have enough time to do the extensive damage associated with long term stress.

The medical community has attributed stress to such biological responses as heart malfunctions, blood pressure variations, gastrointestinal disorders, cancer, depression, muscular discomfort, strokes, and a host of nervous system related problems. For the police officer, biological consequences can represent more long term concerns, but the short term results are the most profound. Stress of the magnitude that affect an officer's reaction time (increased or decreased) can seriously inhibit their ability to perform a vital action. An unrealistic increase could result in overreacting in confrontational situations, while a decrease could result in a serious injury or even death.

The tougher a person's resistance to stress is, the more stress they can take. There is a lot people can do to maximise their resistance to stress. People have resources to help

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