The Effects Of Prolonged Stress

It is when these normal and useful reactions are prolonged, excessive and inappropriate that the trouble begins. The fight or flight response is important for all animals when life is threatened, but we are unlike them in that we can produce these physical and chemical changes for situations that do not require vigorous physical activity.  Below situations may all produce the same response as those for a treat to life:

• a car driver fuming at traffic delays

• a mother exasperated by her children

• frustrating committee meetings

• being late for an appointment

• a row with the boss

• an income tax demand

Influence Of Prolonged Stress

It was shown that while the pulse rate of someone doing physical work was 145 beats a minute, the rate for an interpreter doing simultaneous interpretation was as high as 160.  Someone doing addition at the rate of forty one digit numbers a minute more than doubled his adrenalin output. These people were responding at though they were doing battle when they were sitting sill in a chair.

Our highly developed forebrain also enables us to dwell on past events of imagine future ones and maintain all
the circulating stress bio-chemicals. So instead of the reactions being adaptive short-lived ones, they persist over very long periods. It is now known that emotional states, when they continue for a long time, can have profound effects on the body, sometimes damaging the organs, sometimes predisposing them to infection.

More Effects Of Stress