I thought long and hard "what is stressing me out?" The answer was easy; "everything is stressing me out". I read several articles about stress, looking at leaflets, module handouts, textbooks and Internet articles.

I decided, that to enable me to cope with my stress, I had to look at the taxonomy of stress. Firstly, what is stress? Stress can mean many things to different people. Some may define stress in terms of pressure, tension, unpleasant external forces or emotional response. Lazarus and Launier (1978) defined stress as a transaction between people and the environment. Within this definition, stress involves an interaction between the stressor and distress. Stressor can be defined as the external environment and the response to this stressor is described as distress.

Some people appear to be more strongly affected by stressors than other people or may be affected more on one occasion than another. The reason fo

Through quite extensive reading, I identified with a particular stress model - Cannon's fight of flight model (1932). This model was developed by Cannon in 1932, which suggested that external threats elicited the fight or flight responses. Within Cannon's model, stress was defined as a response to external stressors. Other models I could also identify with included Selye's general adaptation syndrome (GAS), which was developed in 1956 and describes 3 stages in the stress process. The first stage, the "alarm" stage is when the individual is exposed to a stressful situation. The second stage, described as the "resistance" stage, which involves coping and attempts to reverse the effects of the "alarm" stage. The third and final stage, "exhaustion" which is reached after repeated exposure to the stressful situation and could no longer shows further resistance.

These developments look at stress as a product of the individual's capacity for self-control and suggest that successful coping and self-management eradicate stress. Failed self-regulation results in stress.

Krantz et al. (1981) examined the effect of stress on specific health-related behaviours and more general behavioural change, such as smoking and alcohol consumption amongst a myriad of other behavioural changes. Research has shown that being stressed can lead to an individual either taking up smoking or increasing the amount they smoke. The same theory can be applied to drinking alcohol. Both these behavioural changes can have an adverse effect and the individuals can find themselves suffering more stress due to the health-related problems associated with this behaviour. Research has also examined the effects of stress on behaviour changes generally and suggests that individuals who experience high levels of stress per

Some common words found in the essay are:
Lazarus Launier, Karasek Theorell, Moos Swindle, Wiebe McCallum, , Holmes Rahe, Maddi Kobasa, Lazarus Folkman, stressors eg, stress response, moos swindle 1990, behavioural changes, effect stress, alarm stage, health-related behaviours, stress specific, stress responses, fight flight, stressful situation,
Approximate Word count = 1207
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)