What is the Meaning of: Stress | Concept and Definition of: Stress
The concept of stress comes from the term English stress, precisely. It is the tension caused by overwhelming situations that generate psychosomatic reactions or psychological disorders.
Stress is a physical or psychological tension out of the ordinary, which causes an anxiety State on the organization. This is the physiologist and Viennese physician Hans Selye (1907-1982) which is at the origin of this name, former Director of the Institute of Medicine and surgery experimental of the Université de Montréal. His research "Stress: a study on the anxiety", having launched the bases for the development of the concept, was published in 1950.
Among the triggers of stress, known as stressors, there are instead of mentioning any stimulation, both external and internal, that directly or indirectly promotes the destabilization on the dynamic balance of the body (homeostasis).
Among the stressors, we will retain the situations that require to process information on the time, perceptions of threat, stimuli from the environment to be harmful, alteration of physiological functions (such as diseases or addictions), isolation, the collective pressure and frustration.
Concerning the general symptoms of stress, those are enough: the State of anxiety / anxiety, the sense of oppression and apparent hypoxia, muscle rigidity, dilated pupils, inability to manage sleep (insomnia), lack of concentration, irritability and loss of capacity for sociability.
Finally, we will mention that specialists have listed several characteristics of personality to withstand stress, such as the feeling of self-efficacy, strength, optimism and the sense of coherence.