The Stress Myth

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During its reign as a source of all evils, everything from hay fever to cancer was thought to be caused by neurasthenia.

Today, of course, the term is unknown to most people. The next chapter illustrates and explains why there have been difficulties in finding a definition of stress that can be acceptable to everyone. It shows much disagreement amongst various researchers in defining stress. It also demonstrates that the way we use everyday language has helped make an incoherent concept like stress sound more believable.

When the various Stress Theories are explained and analysed, it becomes more obvious that there are serious problems with the idea of stress being the source of many of our problems. Many of the assumptions on which a notion of stress was based remain unproven 50 years later. Further attempts by other researchers to make the concept more coherent have only added to the confusion.

Things get worse in the next chapter when Other Theoretical Problems are exposed. First, the assumptions behind not only the notion of 'stress' but also behindone of its underlying principles, homeostasis, are challenged. The final problem refers to the use of animals in studies of psychological 'stress'. A quick point on this. In studies involving people, researchers are not allowed, for ethical reasons, to expose people to situations that they would find unpleasant or uncomfortable you may want to call these 'stressful', I don't.

This poses a serious problem for research on psychological 'stress'. To overcome this problem, scientists have used animals instead of people. The problem, however, is that this seems to assume that animals don't feel what we feel. If this is the case, then such research and much of the research on stress uses animals is pretty much useless since the findings could not be relevant to people. The alternative is not much better. If animals feel what we feel, then we are cruel to them. Either way, it is not a very good outcome.

The chapter on The Physiological Evidence of Stress tries, as its name indicates, to find scientific evidence for the existence of stress. The ways researchers, in various fields of stress research, have tried to demonstrate that stress exists are discussed. Not only is such an existence not proven but further attempts to demonstrate the effects of stress are shown to be flawed. In the following chapter, the connection between Stress and Disease is investigated. Once again, there is little proof that stress can make us sick, let alone kill us. Despite the many attempts to prove a connection, all that can be shown are correlations between unproven assumptions.

The Myth of Stress

Just in case, you felt that correlations were sufficient to prove a connection between two events, let me remind you that a perfect correlation exists between breathing and dying. Does it mean that if we stop breathing, we will not die? Finally, the last chapter, offering an Alternative Explanation , provides some evidence that the motivation behind the writing of this book is not just about destructing the concept of stress. It is also about offering a useful and practical understanding of what people experience when they think they are 'stressed'.

For it is certain that people DO feel something but whatever it is, it is not 'stress' since there is no evidence that such a 'thing' as 'stress' even exists. The explanation that is offered proposes that we are not helpless victims of 'the disease of the century' and that we can in fact do something about the way we feel. How this can be done is argued carefully. The solutions that are discussed are aimed at the causes of the problem rather than the symptoms.

The Stress Myth: Why Stressors aren't what's stressing you

People who experience stress in those situations may say that it's inevitable because they can't imagine not feeling stress, but you know that this isn't so. Their emotions come from their beliefs.

The same is true for whatever you're stressed out about now money, health , work, etc. It's entirely possible to think differently and not experience stress in your life, as unlikely as that sounds. It just requires a different approach. Stress is not a big deal. The word "stress" is sometimes confined to anxiety about deadlines, which most people can live with, but it's actually much bigger.

Every moment of frustration you have about your job, every point of friction in your relationships at work and at home, every fear or concern you have about money, your health, and the future—essentially, the sum total of all the negative emotions in your life, from the moment you get up until the moment you lie down, is stress. For most individuals, it is a very big deal. We hesitate to admit how big it is because of the myths above, which are woven tightly into our culture and prevent us from dealing with stress more effectively.

The Myth of Stress | HuffPost

But with a little application, anyone can learn the truth about how stress works and, instead of simply managing it, start eliminating it. Andrew Bernstein is the founder of ActivInsight , a process that is changing the way individuals and organizations understand stress and resilience. His new book, The Myth of Stress , reveals where stress really comes from and how to quickly transform problems such as relationships, weight loss, money, success, heartbreak, divorce , and more.

You can ask Andrew questions in the comments here, in his Facebook group , or through Twitter mythofstress. What would you say about chronic pain and stress? Let's assume a patient and doctors are doing all they can to decrease the pain, but some of it is still there. Even if the patient lives a decent life amidst the pain, doesn't the chronic aspect of the pain cause him some degree of stress in his body that he really can't help?

Maybe he doesn't even realize it. I would distinguish between stress and homeostasis, the former being a psychological process and the latter a physical one. We always have homeostatic challenges taking place — to temperature changes, exertion, nutritional input, and other stimuli. These certainly can take place without our realizing it, and sometimes can't be helped. For stress, however, we know when we feel it, and it can always be helped if the person has the right tools.

So there's pain which can reflect a homeostatic disruption at the physical level , and then on top of that there may be stress a psychological disruption with thoughts like, "I can't handle the pain. I shouldn't have so much pain. I'm going to be in pain forever. Interestingly, working on the psychological part of the equation has been proven to lessen people's experience of the physical part. So if someone has frequent pain, while he or she is working with a health professional to treat the cause, it also makes sense to explore the mental aspect and lessen the stress as well.

As I recall, Hans defined stress as, "Anything which requires the organism to adapt of change. But by the nature of his definition, stimulation is stress in that the organism in our case, the person must adapt of change.

The key is whether the adaptation or change involves the fight or flight reaction. If it responding to a stress involves the fight or flight, then the stress could result in an unhealthy reaction if the person does not get back to homeostasis. Yes, meeting a deadline for one person could result in activation of the sympathetic nervous system and deemed stressful.

Books by Andrew Bernstein

For the other person, the deadline might be though of as a "due date" but still require him to adapt of change stress but not activate the sympathetic nervous system. I have operated a stress management clinic for over 20 years and have many self help cds at http: Glutathione is in every cell of your body. It protects your DNA, boosts your immune functioning.

Even though there are hundreds of research studies verifying the value of glutathione, until three years ago there was nothing that could be done about it, today we now have a glutathione accelerator available. For more information please go to http: Stress or the anxiety that comes from it may just be the signal from our unconsious mind that we need to do something differently.

It has the positive intention to keep us safe but is in conflict with it self as the last thing we feel is safe. If we ask ourselves "what can I learn from this? Stress and the physical symptoms it creates is the result of negative EMOTIONS and beliefs that occur when people are unable to cope with the demands of their environment. Following is a scientifically proven technique that anyone can use to transform negative emotions into positive productive emotions and behavior. It is based on about 20 years of physiological research about how emotions effect the brain and cognition.

With practice you can learn to do it in just a few seconds - thus eliminating the cause of the symptoms described in the article. SHIFT your focus away from your racing mind and disturbed emotions to the area around your heart. Keep your attention there for about 10 seconds.

Recall some positive fun times in your life and re-experience the emotions you had then. Do this for about 30 seconds. Initially begin by practicing this BEFORE… meetings, phone calls, difficult discussions, driving in traffic, walking in the door at home, picking up the kids, etc.

You make some good points. A lot of what I have read before is dealing with stress and managing stress. Maybe eliminating stress is a better course of action. When speaking of myths, people tend to fall in realm of semantics, therefor might underestimate its worth. While I cas definitly see the difference between stress and stimulation, and accept all of your points regarding the misconception of the phrase, I found that many people will open to chang their thinking only after taking care of the stress's effects.

I have an illness which disrupts the body's ability to maintain homeostasis. For many years i believe that the answer was in my mind but it appears to be more of a brain and heart problem. Of course I can accept that I have an umanageable illness and that I must live with chronic pain and severe disability which I in fact do. But that sympathetic nervous system can be triggered by a range of things which have nothing to do with the mind.

Imagine you have an allergic reaction to activity - even the simplest thing. Thats what its like. You can use avoidance of activity only up to a point. I could stop typing and that would save some energy and then I would need to do something about the pain which I am currently distracting myself from rather than taking pain meds and actually deep breathing can be a trigger You make some very good points.

I agree it is our thoughts, our mind I believe perceive things differently. What if, I cannot change it by worrying which leads to stress. Thanks you reinforced what I have recently learnt and applying in my own life. Sure, we could make the argument that the "stress" talked about in some of these articles is not really stress, but if there isn't an agreed upon definition, how can we hope to accurately diagnose it let along eliminate it so happier more fulfilling lives can be achieved?

I enjoyed your stress article and agree that it can cause major health issues though I did not realize it was quite that high.

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Though I feel it is best to deal with any down thoughts and acknowledge them rather than to bury them or wash over them with "positive" thoughts. Left alone they will accumulate even if you are chanting positives everyday. This article is spot on, and I specifically agree with point number 5.

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