Causes of emotional stress. Psycho-emotional stress symptoms and treatment

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Ministry of Science and Education of Ukraine

Krivoy Rog Pedagogical University

Department of Physiology and Valeology

Report on the topic:

"Distress"

distress psychovegetative disorder negative emotion

Krivoy Rog

Distress (from the Greek dys - prefix meaning disorder + English stress - tension) -- stress, associated with expressed negative emotions and having a harmful effect on health, author: physiologist G. Selye.

Distress is a negative nonspecific reaction of the animal’s body to any external influence. The most severe form of distress is shock.

A negative type of stress that the human body is unable to cope with. It destroys a person’s moral health and can even lead to severe mental illness. Suffering from stress immune system. People under stress are more likely to become victims of infection, since the production of immune cells drops markedly during periods of physical or mental stress.

Psychological stress is of particular importance for a person, since many events lead to stress in a person not because of their objective characteristics, but because a particular person perceives the event as a source of stress. This leads to an important principle for overcoming psychological stress: it is easier to change a person’s idea of the world than the world itself.

Symptoms of distress:

o headache;

o loss of strength;

o reluctance to do anything;

o loss of faith in the improvement of the situation in the future;

o excited state, desire to take risks;

o partial memory loss due to shock;

o reluctance to think and analyze the situation that led to a stressful state;

o changeable mood;

o fatigue, lethargy.

· What can be a source of stress:

o trauma or crisis situation;

o minor daily troubles;

o conflicts or communication with unpleasant people;

o obstacles that prevent you from achieving your goals;

o feeling of constant pressure;

o pipe dreams or too high demands on oneself;

o monotonous work;

o constant accusation, self-reproach that you have not achieved something or missed something;

o blaming yourself for everything bad that happened, even if it was not your fault;

o hard work;

o financial difficulties;

o strong positive emotions;

o quarrels with people and especially with relatives. (Watching quarrels in the family can also lead to stress.);

o moving from one country to another.

· Risk group:

o elderly people and children;

o people with low self-esteem;

o extroverts;

o neurotics;

o people who abuse alcohol;

o people with a genetic predisposition to stress.

Methods for neutralizing stress:

o Psychological (Autogenic training, meditation, rational psychotherapy, etc.)

o Physiological (Massage, acupuncture, exercise)

o Biochemical (Tranquilizers, herbal medicine)

o Physical (Sauna, hardening, water procedures)

Manifestations of distress.

Distress manifests itself differently in everyone, but there are universal characteristics. One of the obligate signs of distress is anxiety. A certain level of anxiety is characteristic of an individual, and everyone has their own optimal level of anxiety, which allows a person to function best. However, along with the productive anxiety that accompanies eustress, there is unproductive anxiety that is characteristic of distress. Unproductive anxiety disrupts cognitive and autonomic processes. It impairs attention and memory, reduces performance, increases irritability, causes excessive muscle tension, reduces appetite, and disrupts sleep.

Distress and the formation of psycho-vegetative disorders

The role of distress in the formation of psycho-vegetative disorders is enormous. Autonomic changes following distress are very diverse and can manifest themselves in almost all organs and systems of the body. Symptoms from the cardiovascular system are often manifested by an increase in heart rate, a feeling of pulsation, an increase or fluctuation in blood pressure, and a tendency to lipothymic states. From the respiratory system, there may be a feeling of lack of air with the formation of hyperventilation syndrome. From the gastrointestinal tract, nausea, retching, vomiting, loss of appetite, dyspeptic symptoms or constipation, and abdominal cramps are common. Distress is also characterized by other vegetative manifestations: increased sweating, chills, feeling hot or cold, feeling dizzy, and frequent urination. The important role of stress in the occurrence of panic attacks or autonomic crises is discussed. A panic attack should be considered one of the most striking manifestations of a psychovegetative syndrome, in which a polysystemic pattern of autonomic disorders and a strong emotional accompaniment in the form of panic are observed. Among the situations that can lead to the onset of panic attacks are the following stress-related events: significant changes in life - long-term illness or death of a loved one, divorce, separation from loved ones, etc.; events associated with changes in one's own health - physical overload, prolonged fasting, pregnancy, abortion, childbirth, surgical interventions, somatic illness and, finally, exacerbations of conflict situations provoked by stress.

In the last quarter of the 20th century, stress-related diseases appeared - chronic fatigue syndrome and karoshi. The symptoms of CFS follow from its name. Karoshi, translated from Japanese, means “death from overwork.” Both diseases usually affect people of working age.

In the post-Soviet space, stressors have an even more detrimental effect on people than in the relatively stable Western community. Until now, huge masses of people have not been able to adapt to the new conditions of existence. Some people think in old categories and experience constant anxiety in search of minimal means of subsistence. Others, who have a good financial situation, find themselves in stressful situations due to the conflict between imperfect laws, real life, their own conscience and the high pace of modern life.

Destructive Thoughts Cause Distress

According to the founder of the modern teaching on stress, Hans Selye, “destructive” thoughts, feelings and emotions, such as envy, greed, hatred, anger, vindictiveness, contempt, mistrust, suspicion, fear, jealousy, etc., shorten life and weaken the strength of personality. .d.

But not all stress is harmful to health. There are moderate, activating personality - eustress and distress - strong, long-lasting, destructive and damaging. Below we will talk mainly about distress. One of its first and main manifestations is a decrease in success in usual activities.

Growling is normal!

The body responds to any impact with adaptive reactions. Hormones and other biologically active substances are released into the blood. The lungs begin to intensively saturate the blood with oxygen, the heart contracts faster, blood pressure rises, the muscles prepare for immediate work, and the brain prepares for a quick response. These reactions are the same for both animals and humans. An animal in a threatening situation growls, runs away, defends itself, attacks, and thereby avoids the damaging effects of stress. If an animal is placed in “human” conditions, when it cannot react in a natural way, then it will develop stress with all the consequences.

Stress chooses a target organ and stays with you forever

A person cannot react to a conflict or dangerous situation like an animal. Therefore, in any conflict or extreme situation, if there is no constructive activity aimed at overcoming it, tension or weakness occurs in the muscles, trembling in the body, rapid heartbeat, rapid breathing, etc. These are physical manifestations of stress, they are usually accompanied by unpleasant emotions. If the stressful situation was momentary and strong or prolonged, but not intense, then soon with one memory of it all the symptoms described above may appear. In the future, these symptoms can arise as if on their own - this is how neuroses arise. Over time, stress can “choose” a “target organ” for itself. At first, the pain in it is functional in nature, and then organic changes appear. This is how a person develops hypertension, coronary artery disease, stomach ulcers, cholecystitis, colitis and many other diseases.

If you're unlucky, smile

Failure is only a response. If you want to be successful, develop strategies and tactics to overcome failure. It is not what circumstances or people do to you that is important, it is how you act in these circumstances that is important. Convert distress to eustress.

How to avoid the manifestations of stress, acquire resistance to it and remove its harmful influence?

Hans Selye believed that the main defense against stress are positive thoughts, feelings and emotions, such as love, respect, friendliness, selflessness, a sense of humor, and many others - they increase vitality and personal strength.

If you are experiencing difficulties in life, do not rush to give in to emotions, do not blame yourself, others or the current circumstances for the problems that arise. Negative emotions do not create anything, they only destroy.

Neutralize adrenaline

If you are in an acute state of stress and experience unpleasant sensations in the body and negative emotions, then try to relieve them as follows:

1. Sit comfortably, close your eyes and take ten deep breaths.

2. While sitting, place your feet on the floor and push off slightly. Hold the tension for 5-6 seconds. Then relax for the same amount of time. Repeat the exercise two to three times.

3. Clench your fists tightly for 5-6 seconds, relax your hands for 5-6 seconds and repeat the exercise several times.

4. While inhaling deeply, raise and tense your shoulders high and hold them in this position for 5-6 seconds, relax and repeat the exercise.

5. Close your jaws, clench your teeth and frown for 5-6 seconds, relax and repeat the exercise.

6. Widely, as for a smile, part your lips and raise your eyebrows for 5-6 seconds, relax and repeat the exercise.

Relax completely, close your eyes and take 5-6 deep exhalations and feel free to open your eyes. Excess adrenaline after these exercises will be neutralized. If necessary, repeat the exercises after some time.

Resistance to the physical manifestations of stress is best enhanced by jogging, as it not only trains the heart and blood vessels, but also perfectly relieves anxiety. The entire civilized world runs from stress to longevity in the morning.

DISTRESS and INSOMNIA

Unlike stress, distress is such a strong irritant that the body cannot quickly compensate using its own resources. Serious biochemical changes occur in it, a blow is struck to the immune system, defenses are reduced and insomnia develops. Thus, it is not stress that is scary, but distress. Especially often our fruitless expectations, efforts and actions lead to distress. They do not give success because they are too high and lead to the collapse of our own hopes (frustration). Such emotional stress leaves behind noticeable biochemical consequences. Accumulating in the body, they wear out, age tissues and lead to insomnia, which requires treatment. This type of condition is called post-traumatic emotional stress reaction. It must be remembered that emotional trauma is a serious health problem and therefore you should be aware of it in order to avoid insomnia. Sleep disturbances within one month after emotional trauma are one of the main criteria for diagnosis. The main situations in life that cause stress are the loss of a job, a deterioration in the financial situation, the loss of a loved one or information about a serious illness. In today's life, pressing problems include unsuccessful search for work, family breakdown, loneliness, approaching unsecured old age, raising disabled children, and loss of one's own health. All these circumstances cause distress. There is also persistent insomnia and other manifestations of the so-called post-traumatic stress disorder of the nervous system, which occurs after traumatic events that go beyond the scope of normal human experience. They would be a serious shock for any person. Here are tips for overcoming PTSD leading to sleep disturbances that you can try to manage on your own. - Tell your friends about your situation and listen to their opinion. Find people who can truly support you. - Describe your situation in the first person, for example, like this: “What happened to me..., I think..., I worry..., I feel..., I behave...” Describe in detail everything that happened to you is happening. Read the text again and make corrections. After that, describe this situation in a third person. For example: “Someone is experiencing a situation..., trying to cope with it...” At the end, ask questions: - What does he (she) really want? - What can he (she) really change? - After you have formulated your thoughts on paper, try to relax: play with your child, go to the pool or gym, listen to your favorite music, walk with the dog, pet the cat, dream, remember the simple rules of autogenic training. - Before making a decision, you need to rest and relax, or, as they used to say, “cool your head” and not make hasty decisions. Use the following relaxation techniques: 1) Take a few deep breaths to reduce nervousness and anxiety. Force yourself to breathe slowly, feeling your stomach bulge as you inhale and then fall as you exhale. 2) Stretch to relieve muscle tension. 3) Massage the target muscles. Most people have special muscles that, when stressed, tighten sharply, hardening due to the release of adrenaline. These muscles are located on the back of the neck and in the upper back in the area of the shoulder girdle. Massage them for 2-5 minutes to relieve tension. 4) Press on your temples. Acupressure of the nerves at the temples indirectly relaxes certain muscles, mainly in the neck. 5) Don't clench your teeth. Open your mouth and move your jaw from left to right to relax the muscles. 6) Expand your chest to make breathing easier. Take a deep breath and exhale. Then, lift your shoulders up and back, and then relax. Inhale deeply (shoulders back) and exhale, relaxing your shoulders. Repeat 4-5 times, and again take a deep breath and exhale. Do this cycle 4 times. 7) Relax completely. Starting from the top of your head or your toes, simultaneously tense symmetrical muscle groups on the right and left, hold for a few seconds and relax. Work consistently with the muscles of the legs, chest, arms, head and neck. 8) Hold your hands under running hot water until you realize that the tension goes away. 9) Rinse your face with cool water. Move around, do some exercises, because tired muscles are relaxed muscles. Exercise burns off chemicals that are produced during stress. 10) Listen to soothing music. This is a very powerful stress management tool. There are cassettes with relaxing music on sale, although it is enough to listen to any recording of a pleasant melodic nature. This way, you don't have to go to a special lecture or class and waste time dealing with stress. You are sufficiently prepared to work independently. You can be sure that your decision after following these tips will be correct and the result will be successful. Remember: “no matter what your health is, it will last for the rest of your life.” Here are alarming signals that indicate that stress threatens health and requires immediate contact with a specialist: - chronic insomnia; - drowsiness; - insurmountable anxiety; - attacks of dizziness or loss of consciousness; - increased heart rate that does not decrease; - sweaty palms; - trembling of the limbs and a feeling of internal trembling; - rash; - chronic or acute headache; - pain in the back or neck. The general rule is that you need to see a doctor for treatment if you have never had these symptoms before and their occurrence is difficult to explain by anything other than stress.

American scientists have discovered how emotional distress can cause heart attack-like symptoms.

Colleagues (Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, Baltimore) found that stressful life events (eg, death of a relative, car accident, speaking in front of an unfamiliar audience, etc.) can cause severe, but fortunately reversible, left ventricular dysfunction ( LV). Stress-induced cardiomyopathy is apparently a type of myocardial “stunning” caused by sympathetic hyperstimulation. The authors observed 19 patients with LV dysfunction that developed after sudden emotional stress. The participants were predominantly female (n=18); the average age was 63 years. Clinical manifestations included chest pain, pulmonary edema, and cardiogenic shock. Most patients had T wave inversion and QT interval prolongation. Troponin I levels were slightly elevated in 17, but only one patient had angiographic evidence of CAD. Despite the significant severity of LV dysfunction upon admission, it disappeared quite quickly, within 2-4 weeks. The mean ejection fraction increased from 20% to 60% (p<0.001). Пяти участникам была выполнена биопсия миокарда, выявившая мононуклеарную инфильтрацию и некроз сократительных мостиков. Уровни катехоламинов плазмы сравнивались у 13 больных со стрессогенной дисфункцией ЛЖ и 7 больных с инфарктом миокарда, классом III по Killip. В первой группе были достоверно выше уровни адреналина (1264 против 376 пг/мл), норадреналина (2284 против 1100 пг/мл) и допамина (111 против 106 пг/мл) (р<0.005). Признавая, что связь между симпатической стимуляцией и оглушением миокарда до сих пор мало изучена, авторы, тем не менее, предполагают, что стрессогенная ишемия может быть вызвана спазмом эпикардиальных коронарных артерий, спазмом микрососудов или прямым повреждением сердечной мышцы. При адекватной медицинской помощи на начальном этапе, прогноз при стрессогенной кардиомиопатии хороший. При необходимости терапия может включать вазодилататоры, диуретики, механическую циркуляторную поддержку. Прессоры и бета-агонисты лучше не назначать, ввиду массивного выброса катехоламинов при данной патологии/

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Emotions emotional stress

Emotions are a person’s subjectively experienced attitude to various stimuli, facts, events, manifested in the form of pleasure, joy, displeasure, grief, fear, horror, etc. The emotional state is often accompanied by changes in the somatic (facial expressions, gestures) and visceral (changes in heart rate, breathing, etc.) spheres. The structural and functional basis of emotions is the so-called limbic system, which includes a number of cortical, subcortical and brainstem structures.

The formation of emotions follows certain patterns. Thus, the strength of an emotion, its quality and sign (positive or negative) depend on the strength and quality of the need and the likelihood of satisfying this need. In addition, the time factor plays a very important role in the emotional reaction, therefore short and, as a rule, intense reactions are called affects, and long and not very expressive ones are called moods.

5. PSYCHOLOGICAL AXIS OF HEALTH

A low probability of need satisfaction usually leads to the emergence of negative emotions, while an increase in the probability leads to positive emotions. It follows from this that emotions perform a very important function of assessing an event, an object, or irritation in general. In addition, emotions are regulators of behavior, since their mechanisms are aimed at strengthening the active state of the brain (in the case of positive emotions) or weakening it (in the case of negative ones). And finally, emotions play a reinforcing role in the formation of conditioned reflexes, and positive emotions play a leading role in this. A negative assessment of any impact on a person or his psyche can cause a general systemic reaction of the body - emotional stress (tension).

Emotional stress is triggered by stress factors. These include influences and situations that the brain evaluates as negative if there is no way to defend against them or get rid of them. Thus, the cause of emotional stress is the attitude towards the corresponding impact. The nature of the reaction therefore depends on the person’s personal attitude to the situation, the impact and, consequently, on his typological, individual characteristics, characteristics of awareness of socially significant signals or complexes of signals (conflict situations, social or economic uncertainty, expectation of something unpleasant, etc. .).

Due to social motives of behavior in modern people, so-called emotional stress caused by psychogenic factors, such as conflict relationships between people (in a team, on the street, in the family), has become widespread. Suffice it to say that such a serious illness as myocardial infarction is caused by a conflict situation in 7 out of 10 cases.

The increase in stress is humanity's price for technological progress. On the one hand, the share of physical labor in the production of material goods and in everyday life has decreased. And this, at first glance, is a plus, since it makes a person’s life easier. But, on the other hand, a sharp decrease in motor activity disrupted the natural physiological mechanisms of stress, the final link of which should be movement. Naturally, this also distorted the nature of life processes in the human body and weakened its margin of safety.

When stress occurs through a system of intermediaries, the brain (its intermediate section) activates the pituitary gland, which releases the hormone ACTH, an activator of the adrenal glands. At the same time, the activity of the sympathetic nervous system increases, leading to increased heart function, increased blood pressure, increased blood clotting, etc. Ultimately, both hormones and the nervous system gradually increase a person’s performance. This initial stage of stress is called “anxiety” because it mobilizes the body to act against the stressor - this is the stage of restructuring. It is characterized by emotional arousal, when various mechanisms of the body begin to work with great tension, and the interaction between them is often disrupted, which can lead to a temporary decrease in performance. In addition, in the case of pathology or functional disorders in any organ system, the corresponding part of the body may not be able to withstand it (for example, with an increase in blood pressure, a blood vessel may burst if its walls are affected by sclerotic changes).

At the second stage - “stability” - the secretion of hormones stabilizes, the activation of the sympathetic system remains at a high level. This allows you to cope with adverse effects and maintain high mental and physical performance.

Both first stages of stress are combined into a single whole - eustress. This is an adaptive, physiologically normal part of stress. Eustress increases human capabilities.

However, if a stressful situation lasts for a very long time or the stress factor turns out to be very powerful, then the body’s adaptive mechanisms are exhausted. This is the third stage - “exhaustion”, when performance decreases, immunity drops, and stomach and intestinal ulcers form. Therefore, the third stage of stress is pathological and is designated as distress. This is actually a degeneration of the body. Most often, the development of negative consequences is determined by negative emotional reactions that arise in response to a stressful situation. Negative emotions, in turn, increase the flow of stress, so this stage is characterized by a state of mental disaptation.

For modern people, the most important stress factors are emotional. Modern life in all its manifestations very often evokes negative emotions in a person. The brain is constantly overstimulated, and tension accumulates. If a person performs delicate work or is engaged in mental work, emotional stress, especially long-term, can disorganize his activities. This means that stress, or rather eustress, loses its adaptive significance and in some cases even becomes harmful to a person and his activities. Therefore, emotions become a very important factor in healthy human living conditions.

Stress or its undesirable consequences could be reduced by physical activity, which optimizes the relationship between various autonomic systems and is an adequate “application” of stress mechanisms.

Movement is the final stage of any brain activity. Due to the systemic organization of the human body, movement is closely associated with the activity of internal organs. This coupling is largely mediated through the brain. Therefore, the exclusion of such a natural biological component as movement has a noticeable effect on the state of the nervous system - the normal course of the processes of excitation and inhibition is disrupted, and excitation begins to predominate. Since during emotional stress the excitation in the central nervous system reaches great strength and does not find an “exit” in movement, it disorganizes the normal functioning of the brain and the course of mental processes. In addition, an excess amount of hormones appears, which cause metabolic changes that are appropriate only with a high level of physical activity.

As already noted, the physical activity of a modern person is not sufficient to relieve tension (stress) or its consequences. As a result, tension accumulates, and a small negative impact is enough for a mental breakdown to occur. At the same time, a large amount of adrenal hormones are released into the blood, increasing metabolism and activating the work of visceral organs and systems. Since the reserve of functional strength of the body, and especially the heart and blood vessels, is reduced (they are poorly trained), some people develop severe disorders of the cardiovascular and other systems.

Another way to protect yourself from the negative effects of stress is to change your attitude towards the situation. The main thing here is to reduce the significance of a stressful event in a person’s eyes (“it could have been worse”, “it’s not the end of the world”, etc.). In fact, this method allows you to create a new dominant focus of excitation in the brain, which will slow down the stressful one.

The worst behavior in a stressful situation is to refuse physical activity or change your attitude towards the situation (“search activity”). The manifestation of such a refusal in a person is depression, neurotic anxiety, the experience of apathy, helplessness and hopelessness. Such symptoms often precede the development of a number of psychosomatic and somatic diseases, especially stomach and intestinal ulcers, allergies, and various tumors. These symptoms manifest themselves especially sharply in highly active people who capitulate to difficulties that arise in situations that seem hopeless to them (the so-called type A). According to clinicians, such symptoms occur before myocardial infarction.

A special type of emotional stress is informational. Scientific and technological progress in which we live causes a lot of changes around a person and has a powerful impact on him that surpasses any other environmental influence. Progress has changed the information environment and given rise to an information boom. As already noted, the amount of information accumulated by humanity approximately doubles every decade, which means that each generation needs to assimilate a significantly larger amount of information than the previous one. However, the brain does not change, nor does the number of cells of which it consists increase. That is why, in order to assimilate an increased volume of information, in particular in the field of education, it is necessary to either increase the duration of training or intensify this process. Since it is quite difficult to increase the duration of training, including for economic reasons, it remains to increase its intensity. However, in this case there is a natural fear of information overload. In themselves, they do not pose a threat to the psyche, since the brain has enormous capabilities for processing large amounts of information and protecting against its excess. But if the time needed to process it is limited, this causes severe neuropsychic stress - information stress. In other words, unwanted tension occurs when the speed of information entering the brain does not correspond to the biological and social capabilities of a person. The most unpleasant thing is that in addition to the factors of volume of information and lack of time, a third one is added - motivational: if the demands on the child from parents, society, and teachers are high, then the brain’s self-defense mechanisms do not work (for example, avoidance of studying) and, as a result, information overload occurs. At the same time, diligent children experience special difficulties (for example, a first-grader, when performing a test, has a mental state that corresponds to the state of an astronaut during the takeoff of a spacecraft). No less information overload is created by various types of professional activities (for example, an air traffic controller sometimes must simultaneously control up to 17 aircraft, a teacher - up to 40 individually different students, etc.).

Thus, numerous circumstances of modern life lead to excessively strong psycho-emotional stress in a person, causing negative reactions and conditions leading to neuroses - disruptions of normal mental activity.

5.3. The evolution of the formation of the human psyche

5.3.1. Evolutionary prerequisites for the formation of the human psyche

The peculiarities of the functioning of the human psyche are largely determined by its evolutionary, historical development.

The formation of the human psyche in evolution was under the influence of biological (to a greater extent in the early stages of the historical process) and social (at later) factors. Although both groups of factors are closely intertwined in evolution, in the history of mankind the latter played a leading role, since the former turned out to be more conservative.

The evolution of the human brain predominantly went in the direction of increasing brain volume (from 500-600 cm3 in australopithecines to 1300-1400 cm3 in modern humans). This process was accompanied by an increase in the number of neurons and the complication of connections between them. Such changes occurred especially rapidly in the cerebral cortex. If in lowly organized animals the main areas in the cerebral cortex are occupied by sensory and motor zones, then already in primates the associative zones (neocortex) reach great development, which are united by cortico-cortical connections into a single integrative brain system. This, in particular, allowed our ape-like ancestors to master imitative activity, which, in turn, helped to move on to objective activity, and then to tool activity.

Joint work activity stimulated the development of human associative zones, especially the frontal lobes, and led to the formation of speech - the second signaling system, inherent in a developed form only to humans. Speech is a reflection of the thought processes occurring in the brain. Speech allowed a person to abstract from reality, accumulate and transmit information to each other and from generation to generation, that is, speech itself became the basis of training and education. Thus, it was speech that became the basis for human socialization and ultimately the emergence and development of civilization.

Since the emergence of speech is closely related to motor activity (especially of the hands), its development in ontogenesis is stimulated by movement.

The development of speech led to increasing specialization in brain activity. As a result, a person developed a functional asymmetry between the hemispheres of the brain. Thus, as a rule, the left hemisphere of the brain is associated with speech, while the second hemisphere retains more ancient biological functions - emotions and the associated concrete-figurative assessment of reality.

Changes in brain functions corresponded to the evolution of the genotype of humans and animals.

5.3.2. Basics of psychogenetics

Any human function is formed on the basis of his genetic material - genes. They also record the program for the development of the brain, the functions of its individual parts and some mental characteristics. The implementation of the genetic program in certain environmental conditions, including educational ones, leads to the formation of the human psyche with all its components. As a result of the interaction of the genotype with the environment, as already noted, a whole complex of morphological, physiological and behavioral characteristics is formed, which is called a phenotype. In relation to individual brain development, the genotype determines the main anatomical connections between departments, determines the location of many nerve centers, certain properties, nervous processes, and ensures the inheritance of unconditioned reflexes and instincts. Higher mental functions, as a rule, are not inherited, but their implementation is impossible without an appropriate anatomical basis, relationships between neurons, without the innate ability of neurons to rearrange these connections and a number of other features of the nervous system (in particular, strength, mobility and balance of nervous processes) . That is, we can talk about the inheritance of certain inclinations of mental functions.

The exact contribution of the genotype to the formation of mental components is difficult to assess due to their high variability. As a rule, it is not possible to identify any sign, a functional indicator of mental activity (with the exception of some simple unconditioned reflexes) that can be associated with any genes. Moreover, even innate behavioral characteristics manifest themselves differently depending on the situation.

On the other hand, it is still possible to detect some genetically determined features of the activity of the nervous system that affect the nature of thought processes, attention, memory, etc., which depend little or not at all on the external environment or conditions of upbringing. For example, a certain predominant rhythm of electrical activity of the brain (EEG), characteristic of human wakefulness, has a very strong genetic determination. This is an important circumstance, since the nature of the EEG reflects the level of activation of brain activity, the ability to achieve the optimal level of functioning necessary to solve certain problems. The role of environmental influences on the formation of other neuropsychic characteristics is much higher. An example of this is the individual psychophysiological characteristics of a person, formed during his life.

5.3.3. Psyche and modern living conditions

The living conditions of modern man differ significantly from those in which he became a biosocial being. In the early stages of the existence of Homo sapiens, he led a lifestyle close to natural. In particular, he was characterized by a high level of physical activity, which in itself corresponded to the neuropsychic stress necessary in the struggle for existence. People lived in small communities, living in an ecologically clean natural environment, which could be replaced (but not changed) by the entire community if it became unsuitable for life.

The development of civilization went in the direction of property stratification and professional specialization of people, necessary for mastering new tools, increasing the length of training and gradually lengthening the period of specialization of part of the population. From the perspective of the life of one generation, all these changes occurred rather slowly, against the backdrop of relatively slow changes in the habitat, low population density and while maintaining a high level of physical activity. All this did not impose any special requirements on the human psyche that went beyond the boundaries of evolution.

The situation began to change with the beginning of the development of capitalism and progressive urbanization, most radically in the second half of the 20th century, when human lifestyle began to change rapidly. The scientific and technological revolution led to a decrease in the share of physical labor, that is, to a decrease in the level of physical activity. This circumstance disrupted the natural biological mechanisms in which the latter was the final link in life activity, therefore the nature of the life processes in the body changed and ultimately the stock of human adaptive capabilities decreased.

Another important consequence of the progressive development of civilization was the growth of the urban population, which sharply increased the density of human-human contacts. From a mental point of view, these contacts often turn out to be unpleasant for a person. On the contrary, family relationships have a beneficial effect, if, of course, the relationships between family members are good. However, unfortunately, favorable family relationships occupy only 20-30 minutes a day in the family, according to statistics.

Certain factors of a noticeably changed external environment have an undoubted influence on the psyche of modern man. Thus, the noise level has increased significantly, especially in urban areas, where it significantly exceeds permissible standards. If it is a busy highway, then the effect of noise on the human brain is comparable to the effect of the roar of an airport. Poor sound insulation, sound-reproducing devices (TV, radio, etc.) turned on in your own apartment or in your neighbors’ ones make the influence of noise almost constant. Such noises, unlike natural ones, which in the process of evolution were an integral part of the nature surrounding humans (wind noise, the sound of a stream, birdsong, etc.), have a negative impact on the entire body and on the psyche in particular: the respiratory rate and arterial blood flow change. pressure, sleep and dream patterns are disturbed, insomnia and other unfavorable symptoms develop. Such unfavorable environmental factors have a particularly strong impact on a growing child’s body, and the level of fear in children increases more clearly.

Emotions and emotional stress

Emotions are a person’s subjectively experienced attitude to various stimuli, facts, events, manifested in the form of pleasure, joy, displeasure, grief, fear, horror, etc. The emotional state is often accompanied by changes in the somatic (facial expressions, gestures) and visceral (changes in heart rate, breathing, etc.) spheres. The structural and functional basis of emotions is the limbic system, which includes a number of cortical, subcortical and brain stem structures.

The formation of emotions follows certain patterns. Thus, the strength of an emotion, its quality and sign (positive or negative) depend on the characteristics of the need and the likelihood of its satisfaction. The time factor also plays an important role in the emotional reaction, therefore short and, as a rule, intense reactions are called affects, and long and not very expressive - moods.

A low probability of need satisfaction usually leads to negative emotions, increase in probability – positive.

Emotions perform an important function in assessing an event, an object, or irritation in general. In addition, emotions are regulators of behavior, since their mechanisms are aimed at strengthening the active state of the brain (in the case of positive emotions) or weakening it (in the case of negative ones). And finally, emotions play a reinforcing role in the formation of conditioned reflexes, and positive emotions are of primary importance in this.

A negative assessment of any impact on a person, his psyche can cause a general systemic reaction of the body - emotional stress(tension) caused by negative emotions. It can arise due to exposure, situations that the brain evaluates as negative, because there is no way to protect yourself from them or get rid of them. Consequently, the nature of the reaction depends on the person’s personal attitude to the event.

Due to social motives of behavior in modern man, emotional stress and tension caused by psychogenic factors (for example, conflictual relationships between people) have become widespread. Suffice it to say that myocardial infarction in seven out of ten cases is caused by a conflict situation.

The mental health of modern man has been significantly affected by a sharp decrease in physical activity, which has disrupted the natural physiological mechanisms of stress, the final link of which should be movement.

When stress occurs, the pituitary gland and adrenal glands are activated, the hormones of which cause an increase in the activity of the sympathetic nervous system, which in turn causes an increase in the work of the cardiovascular, respiratory and other systems - all this contributes to the growth of human performance. This initial stage of stress, the stage of restructuring that mobilizes the body to act against the stressor, is called " anxiety" During this stage, the body's major systems begin to work under greater strain. In this case, if there is pathology or functional disorders in any system, it may not be able to withstand it, and a breakdown will occur (for example, if the walls of a blood vessel are affected by sclerotic changes, then with a sharp increase in blood pressure it may burst).

At the second stage of stress - “ sustainability“- the secretion of hormones stabilizes, the activation of the sympathetic system remains at a high level. This allows you to cope with adverse effects and maintain high mental and physical performance.

Both first stages of stress are a single whole - eustress – This is a physiologically normal part of stress that contributes to a person’s adaptation to the situation by increasing his functional capabilities. But if the stressful situation lasts for a very long time or the stress factor turns out to be very powerful, then the body’s adaptive mechanisms are exhausted, and the third stage of stress develops, “ exhaustion“When performance decreases, immunity drops, and stomach and intestinal ulcers form. This is a pathological form of stress and is referred to as distress.

Reduce stress or its undesirable consequences movement, which, according to I.M. Sechenov, (1863), is the final stage of any brain activity. The exclusion of movement noticeably affects the state of the nervous system, so that the normal course of the processes of excitation and inhibition with a predominance of the former is disrupted. Excitement that does not find a “way out” in movement disrupts the normal functioning of the brain and the course of mental processes, which is why a person experiences depression, anxiety, and a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness. Such symptoms often precede the development of a number of psychosomatic and somatic diseases, especially stomach and intestinal ulcers, allergies, and various tumors. Such consequences are especially characteristic of highly active people who capitulate in a seemingly hopeless situation (type A). And vice versa - if you resort to movement under stress, then the destruction and utilization of hormones that accompany stress itself occurs, so that its transition to distress is excluded.

Another way to protect yourself from the negative effects of stress is change in attitude towards the situation. To do this, it is necessary to reduce the significance of the stressful event in a person’s eyes (“it could have been worse”), which makes it possible to create a new focus of dominance in the brain that will slow down the stressful event.

Currently, the greatest danger to humans is information stress. The scientific and technological progress in which we live has given rise to an information boom. The amount of information accumulated by humanity approximately doubles every decade, which means that each generation needs to assimilate a significantly larger amount of information than the previous one. But at the same time, the brain does not change, which, in order to assimilate the increased volume of information, has to work with increasing stress, and information overload develops. Although the brain has enormous capabilities for assimilation of information and protection from its excess, when there is a lack of time to process information, this leads to information stress. In the conditions of school education, a third factor is often added to the factors of volume of information and lack of time - motivation associated with high demands on the student from parents, society, and teachers. Diligent children experience particular difficulties in this regard. No less information overload is created by various types of professional activities.

Thus, the conditions of modern life lead to excessively strong psycho-emotional stress, causing negative reactions and states leading to disruptions of normal mental activity.

Emotional stress or trigger for change

Stress has the same effect on any organism, but its effect is expressed in different ways. This is due to the fact that each person reacts to stressors in their own way. Emotional stress can be objective (physical and mental stress) and subjective (provoked by personal fears and anxieties). Subjective stress is determined by the mental characteristics and personal experience of a person.

What is emotional stress

Sometimes a person finds himself in a situation where the body is forced to use hidden capabilities to preserve health and life. Such conditions are a trigger for change and cause emotional stress. The main cause of emotional stress is a person’s thoughts, feelings, and the influence of the environment.

Emotions and stress

Emotional stress can be expressed in a multiple increase in a person’s hidden capabilities, physical and personal qualities. It is even believed that he is able to show the essence of a person and reveal his capabilities. In other situations, stress sharply reduces the emotional state, and a person may lose control of himself.

Types of emotional stress: positive, negative

Stress and emotions are inextricably linked, which is why this type of stress is often called psycho-emotional.

Emotionally stressful psychotherapy

Psycho-emotional stress can be roughly classified as follows:

Positive – eutstress. This is a positive form, it affects the body, increasing and mobilizing the body’s hidden resources, stimulating a person to perform any activity.

Negative – distress. This is a destructive influence, which is expressed in psychological trauma, is difficult to forget and torments a person for a long time. Distress has an impact on mental and physical health and can cause dangerous diseases.

Negative stress also affects a person’s immunity, reducing their resistance to colds and infections. Under its influence, the endocrine glands begin to work actively, the load on the autonomic nervous system increases, which leads to discord in the psycho-emotional component. This often ends in depression or the appearance of phobias.

Emotional stress in adolescents

All children and teenagers are quite emotional; they actively react to all changes. In most cases, the child’s emotionality is positive, but over time it can acquire a negative connotation. When the strength of emotions reaches a certain peak, emotional overstrain occurs, which leads to nervous disorders.

The initial causes of stress in a child and adolescent are changes in the family and social life. As they grow older, their number increases, but not all children have high resistance to stress factors. Children who find support in the family can bear stress more easily.

Factors causing stress

The following factors cause emotional stress in adolescents:

Increased responsibility;

Lack of time;

Frequent situations in which a child’s performance is assessed;

Dramatic changes in life;

Conflicts in the family, in life;

Physiological factors.

Removing emotional tension and stress in adolescents is done by resolving difficult circumstances that caused the disorder. At this age, family psychotherapy and person-centered practices can be used.

Causes and symptoms

The most basic cause of emotional stress is the contradiction between expected reality and reality. At the same time, both real and imagined factors can trigger the stress mechanism.

Emotional Signs of Stress

Scientists have compiled a table of stress factors that cause overexertion in most cases. These are the most significant events for a person, which can be positive or negative. Problems related to personal life, family, and loved ones have a huge impact.

The signs of stress are individual for each person, but they are united by a negative perception and painful experience. How an individual's condition is expressed depends on the stages or phases of stress and how the body copes.

Where do emotions live?

You can tell if a person is suffering from emotional stress by the following signs:

Everyone can overcome emotional stress on their own. By learning to control consciousness, a person gains control over uncontrollable emotions and increases self-esteem. This opens up new opportunities for personal development and allows you to take a step towards self-development and self-improvement.

In the process of relieving emotional stress, it is recommended to take anti-stress medications, good for relieving anxiety and restlessness.

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The life of a modern person is impossible without stress. Social conditions, work, overwork – all this causes emotions. Sometimes a person undergoes a sharp exit from his comfort zone, which entails the need for psychological adaptation. This is psycho-emotional stress.

Emotional stress

The danger of stress cannot be underestimated, as it can cause many diseases of internal organs and systems. You should promptly identify stressors and eliminate their influence in order to protect your own health.

The concept of stress and stages of its development

The concept of emotional stress was first identified by the physiologist Hans Selye in 1936. This concept denoted reactions unusual for the body in response to any adverse impact. Due to the influence of stimuli (stressors), the body's adaptation mechanisms are in tension. The adaptation process itself has three main stages of development - anxiety, resistance and exhaustion.

In the first stage of the response phase (anxiety), the body's resources are mobilized. The second, resistance, manifests itself in the form of activation of defense mechanisms. Exhaustion occurs when psycho-emotional resources are exhausted (the body gives up). It should be noted that emotions and emotional stress are interrelated concepts. But only negative emotions that cause negative stress can lead to serious mental disorders. Selye called this state distress.

Causes of distress prompt the body to exhaust its energy. This can lead to serious illness.

The concept of stress can have a different character. Some scientists are confident that the manifestation of emotional stress is associated with a generalized distribution of sympathetic and parasympathetic arousals. And the diseases that appear as a result of this distribution are individual.

Distress - negative stress

Negative emotions and stress are unpredictable. The manifestation of the body’s protective functions against an emerging psychological threat can only overcome minor difficulties. And, with prolonged or periodic repetition of stressful situations, emotional arousal becomes chronic. A process such as exhaustion, emotional burnout, manifests itself precisely when a person remains in a negative psycho-emotional background for a long time.

Main Causes of Emotional Stress

Positive emotional reactions rarely pose a threat to human health. And negative emotions, accumulating, lead to chronic stress and pathological disorders of organs and systems. Informational and emotional stress affects both the physiological state of the patient and his emotions and behavior. The most common causes of stress are:

grievances, fears and negative emotional situations;
sharp unfavorable life problems (death of a loved one, job loss, divorce, etc.);
social conditions;
potentially dangerous situations;
excessive feeling of concern for yourself and loved ones.

Causes of stress

In addition, even positive emotions can be harmful. Especially if fate brings surprises (the birth of a child, promotion up the career ladder, fulfillment of a dream, etc.). Physiological factors can also be causes of stress:

sleep disturbance;
overwork;
pathologies of the central nervous system;
poor nutrition;
hormonal imbalances;
post-traumatic disorders.

Stress, as a health risk factor, is unpredictable. A person can cope with its impact, but not always. In order to alleviate stress and diagnose it, experts tend to divide stressors into external and internal.

You should look for a way out of a dangerous psycho-emotional state by eliminating the influence of the disturbing factor on the body. There are no problems with external stressors. But dealing with internal stressors requires long, painstaking work not only by a psychologist, but also by other specialists.

Signs of stress

Each person has an individual resource of strength to cope with stress. It is called stress resistance. Therefore, stress, as a risk factor for health, should be considered based on possible symptoms that affect both the emotional and mental state of the body.

With the advent of distress, the causes of which are associated with external or internal factors, adaptive functions fail. When a stressful situation develops, a person may feel fear and panic, act disorganized, experience difficulties with mental activity, etc.

Stress itself manifests itself depending on stress resistance (emotional stress can cause serious pathological changes in the body). It manifests itself in the form of emotional, physiological, behavioral and psychological changes.

Physiological signs

The most dangerous to health are physiological symptoms. They pose a threat to the normal functioning of the body. When under stress, the patient may refuse to eat and suffer from sleep problems. During physiological reactions, other symptoms are observed:

pathological manifestations of an allergic nature (itching, skin rashes, etc.);
indigestion;
headaches;
increased sweating.

Physiological stress

Emotional Signs

Emotional signs of stress manifest themselves in the form of a general change in the emotional background. It is easier to get rid of them than other symptoms, since they are regulated by the desire and will of the person himself. Under the influence of negative emotions, social or biological factors, a person may experience:

Bad mood, melancholy, depression, anxiety and anxiety.
Anger, aggression, loneliness, etc. These emotions arise sharply and are clearly expressed.
Changes in character - increased introversion, decreased self-esteem, etc.
Pathological conditions – neurosis.

Emotional stress

It is impossible to experience severe stress without showing emotions. It is emotions that reflect a person’s state and are the main way to determine situations in psychology. And in order to prevent danger to health, it is the manifestation of this or that emotion and its influence on human behavior that plays an important role.

Behavioral signs

Human behavior and the reactions that accompany it are signs of emotional stress. It's easy to identify them:

decreased performance, complete loss of interest in work;
changes in speech;
difficulties communicating with others.

Emotional stress, which is expressed through behavior, is easy to determine by long-term observation of a person and when communicating with him. The fact is that he behaves differently than usual (he is impulsive, speaks quickly and unintelligibly, commits rash actions, etc.).

Psychological signs

Psychological symptoms of emotional stress most often manifest themselves when a person spends a long time outside the zone of psycho-emotional comfort and his inability to adapt to new living conditions. As a result, biological and physical factors leave their mark on a person’s psychological state:

memory problems;
problems concentrating when doing work;
sexual behavior disorder.

People feel helpless, withdraw from loved ones and plunge into deep depression.

Deep depression

With mental factors, a person succumbs to acute or chronic mental injuries. A person may develop a personality disorder, depressive psychogenic reactions, reactive psychoses, etc. Each of the pathologies is a sign that is a consequence of the influence of psychological trauma. The causes of such conditions can be both unexpected news (death of a loved one, loss of housing, etc.) and the long-term influence of stressors on the body.

Why is stress dangerous?

Prolonged stress can lead to serious health problems. The fact is that during stress, the adrenal glands secrete an increased amount of adrenaline and norepinephrine. These hormones cause internal organs to work more actively in order to protect the body from stressors. But accompanying phenomena, such as increased blood pressure, spasms of muscles and blood vessels, increased blood sugar, lead to disruption of the functioning of organs and systems. It is because of this that the risk of developing diseases increases:

hypertension;
stroke;
ulcer;
heart attack;
angina pectoris;

With the effect of prolonged psycho-emotional stress, immunity decreases. The consequences can be different: from colds, viral and infectious diseases to the formation of oncology. The most common pathologies are related to the cardiovascular system. The second most common are gastrointestinal diseases.

Impact of stress on health

According to doctors, more than 60% of all diseases of modern man are caused by stressful situations.

Diagnosis of emotional stress

Diagnosis of the psycho-emotional state is carried out only in a psychologist’s office. The fact is that each case requires a detailed study using the methods and conditions set by a specialist for a specific purpose. This takes into account the direction of work, diagnostic goals, consideration of a specific situation in the patient’s life, etc.

Identification of the main causes of stressful behavior occurs using various psychodiagnostic methods. All of them can be divided into classes:

Current level of stress, severity of neuropsychic tension. The methods of express diagnostics and testing of T. Nemchin, S. Kouhen, I. Litvintsev and others are used.
Prediction of human behavior in stressful situations. Both the self-esteem scale and questionnaires by V. Baranov, A. Volkov and others are used.
Negative consequences of distress. Differential diagnostic methods and questionnaires are used.
Professional stress. They use surveys, tests, and “live” dialogue with a specialist.
Level of stress resistance. The most commonly used questionnaires are questionnaires.

The information obtained as a result of psychodiagnostics is the main basis for further combating stress. The specialist looks for a way out of a certain situation, helps the patient overcome difficulties (preventing stress) and deals with the strategy for further treatment.

Treatment of emotional stress

Treatment of psychoemotional stress is individual for each clinical case. For some patients, self-organization, finding new hobbies and daily analysis and monitoring of their own condition are enough, while others require medication, sedatives and even tranquilizers. According to experts, the first thing to do is to identify the stressor and eliminate its influence on the emotional and mental state of a person. Further methods of control depend on the severity of the disease, its phase and consequences.

The most effective methods of stress therapy are:

Meditation. Allows you to relax, calm your nerves and analyze all life's difficulties and difficulties.
Exercise. Physical activity allows you to take your mind off problems. In addition, during exercise, pleasure hormones are produced - endorphin and serotonin.
Medicines. Calming and sedative drugs.

Psychological trainings. Taking group classes with a specialist and home methods not only help eliminate signs of stress, but also improve the individual’s resistance to stress.

Psychological trainings

Therapy is most often based on complex methods. Psycho-emotional stress often requires a change of environment and outside support (both loved ones and a psychologist). If you have trouble sleeping, doctors may prescribe sedatives. For severe psychological disorders, tranquilizers may be required.

Sometimes folk methods are used, based on the preparation of decoctions and tinctures. The most common is herbal medicine. Plants such as valerian, oregano and lemon balm have a calming effect. The main thing is that the person himself wants changes in life and tries to correct his condition by returning to his natural existence.

Stress Prevention

Prevention of psycho-emotional stress comes down to maintaining a healthy lifestyle, proper nutrition and doing what you love. You need to limit yourself as much as possible from stress, be able to predict and “get around” them. Psychologists are confident that the risk of stressful situations decreases if a person:

exercise;
set new goals for yourself;
organize your work activities correctly;
pay attention to your rest, especially sleep.

The main thing is to think positively and try to do everything for the benefit of your own health. If you were unable to protect yourself from stress, there is no need to give in to panic or fear. You should remain calm, try to think about all possible scenarios and look for ways out of the current situation. Thus, the consequences of stress will be “milder”.

Conclusion

Every person is susceptible to emotional stress. Some people manage to quickly overcome feelings of anxiety, fear and subsequent behavioral signs (aggression, disorientation, etc.). But sometimes, prolonged or frequently repeated stress leads to exhaustion of the body, which is dangerous to health.

You need to be sensitive to your own psycho-emotional state, try to anticipate stress and find safe ways to express your emotions through creativity or doing what you love. This is the only way to keep your body healthy and strong.

Typically, this condition develops against the background of uncomfortable situations that do not allow the realization or satisfaction of basic physiological and social needs. Researchers have identified a number of reasons that can trigger psycho-emotional stress, including:

feeling of fear;
difficult circumstances;
drastic changes due to relocation, job change, etc.
anxiety.

Various situations that cause negative feelings can contribute to the appearance of this condition. The emotions and emotional stress caused by this can manifest themselves most clearly in the child. Children have a hard time enduring their failures, conflicts with peers, parents’ divorce, etc. The intensity of emotions in this social group usually does not decrease for a long time, which contributes to the development of severe stress.

The appearance of psycho-emotional stress is often observed against the background of situations that pose a potential threat to life. Strong emotions and stress, as their continuation, can also appear under the influence of external stimuli, for example, excessive physical activity, infections, various diseases, etc. Against the background of these conditions, the effect of psychological stress appears. Some physiological reasons can also provoke psycho-emotional stress. These factors include:

disturbances in the functioning of the nervous system;
insomnia;
hormonal changes in the body;
chronic fatigue;
endocrine diseases;
adaptation reaction;
personal decompensation;
unbalanced diet.

All factors that provoke stress can be divided into external and internal. It is very important to identify what exactly led to strong experiences. The first group of factors includes states or conditions of the external environment that are accompanied by strong emotions. The second can include the results of human mental activity and imagination. They usually have no connection with real events.

Risk groups of people exposed to emotional stress

Every person encounters this condition many times, and its manifestations quickly disappear when the conditions in which they arose softened or the body adapted to them. However, scientists identify separate groups of people who have certain characteristics of psychological regulation that make them more susceptible to the influence of factors that cause an increase in emotional tension. They are more often exposed to stress, which manifests itself in a more pronounced form. People at risk include:

Those who constantly experience psychological discomfort and pressure caused by a combination of different circumstances often experience their emotions within themselves without showing them. This contributes to the accumulation of emotional fatigue and can cause nervous exhaustion.

Classification of forms and stages of emotional stress

The appearance of this condition can be observed under a wide variety of conditions. There are 2 main types of it. Eustress is the result of a reaction that can activate the adaptive and mental abilities of the human body. Usually it occurs with any positive emotions. Distress is a kind of pathological condition that causes disorganization of a person’s behavioral and psychological activity. It negatively affects the entire body. Usually this condition is caused by emotional stress in conflict situations. Various psychotraumatic situations can also cause the development of this disorder.

Psycho-emotional stress usually occurs in 3 main stages. The first phase was called perestroika. First, with increased psychological stress, a number of biological and chemical reactions are triggered. During this period, there is an increase in the activity of the adrenal glands and the release of adrenaline. This contributes to increased arousal, leading to impaired performance and decreased reactions.

After this, the stabilization phase begins. The adrenal glands adapt to the current situation, which causes stabilization of hormone production. If the stressful situation does not disappear, its third stage begins. The last phase is characterized by the development of exhaustion of the nervous system. The body loses the ability to overcome psycho-emotional stress. The work of the adrenal glands is severely limited, which causes a malfunction of all systems. Physically, this stage is characterized by a critical decrease in glucocorticosteroid hormones with an increase in insulin levels. This causes a weakening of the immune system, decreased performance, the development of mental maladaptation, and sometimes various pathologies.

Manifestations of emotional stress

The presence of this disorder cannot occur without any symptoms. Thus, if a person is in this state, it is extremely difficult not to notice it. Developing emotional stress and regulation of emotional states are always accompanied by a number of characteristic psychological and physiological signs.

Such manifestations include:

increased breathing rate;
tension of individual muscle groups;
tears;
increased irritability;
increased heart rate;
decreased concentration;
sudden jumps in blood pressure;
general weakness;
increased sweating.

Often, emotional stress manifests itself in severe headaches, as well as attacks of lack of air (oxygen deficiency). There is a sharp increase or decrease in body temperature. Often, a person under stress may exhibit inappropriate reactions. Against the backdrop of a surge of emotions, the ability to think and act rationally is often lost, so the subject sometimes cannot sensibly assess his behavior and adequately respond to the existing situation. Typically, physical manifestations as a reaction to stress occur over a short period of time.

Why is emotional stress dangerous?

The influence of psychological factors on general health has already been proven. Many pathological conditions can be caused by stress. Against the background of various psycho-emotional disruptions, an increase in adrenaline levels is observed. This can cause sudden increases in blood pressure. This phenomenon often leads to spasm of blood vessels in the brain. This can cause a stroke. Damage to the walls of blood vessels may occur. Due to these physiological characteristics of this psychological state, the risk of developing diseases such as:

hypertension;
malignant tumors;
heart failure;
arrhythmia;
angina pectoris;
heart attack;
coronary heart disease.

Severe and prolonged stress can cause severe consequences. Neuroses, heart attacks and mental disorders may occur. Emotional stress can lead to exhaustion of the body and lower immunity. A person begins to suffer more often from viral, fungal and bacterial diseases, and they occur in a more aggressive form. Among other things, medical workers have found that against the background of emotional stress, there is often an exacerbation of conditions such as:

migraine;
asthma;
digestive disorders;
decreased vision;
ulcers of the stomach and intestines.

For people who are predisposed to these pathological manifestations, it is very important to constantly monitor their psychological state. In a child, severe stress can lead to even more serious consequences. Children develop a variety of chronic diseases due to psychological stress.

Methods for relieving emotional stress

In psychology, a lot is already known about the danger of this condition. Many modern people also have the concept of emotional stress, since they face a similar problem quite often due to increased psychological stress, including when solving work issues. The accumulation of negative emotions and tension can have a very negative impact on all aspects of a person’s life, so this must be dealt with by all possible methods.

If stressful situations are a constant companion of life, or a person experiences any troubles too acutely, it is best to immediately consult a psychotherapist. Working with a specialist allows you to learn to get rid of negative emotions. When emotional stress manifests itself and it is impossible for a person to regulate emotional states on his own, it is imperative to use auto-training. They help increase emotional stability. In some cases, a psychotherapist may recommend the use of certain sedatives and herbs that have a pronounced calming effect. This helps reduce stress.

If a person has difficulty with psychological discomfort, physiotherapeutic treatment is also recommended. In addition, significant benefits can come from learning meditation techniques that can quickly eliminate all existing negative emotions. It is necessary to learn to distract yourself from unpleasant thoughts and, in any unfavorable situations, not to become despondent, but to look for ways to solve existing problems.

Preventing emotional stress

In order to suffer less from the manifestations of this psychological state, you need to correctly schedule your day. Some people experience emotional stress precisely because they do not have time to do something and are constantly forced to rush somewhere. In this case, special attention should be paid to preventing the development of this condition. Be sure to get at least 8 hours of sleep. Naturally, you need to use your own relaxation methods in life. This moment is individual. For some people, dancing or going to the gym helps them get rid of unpleasant emotions, while for others, doing yoga, listening to music or drawing.

Certain prevention is also necessary to prevent the development of emotional stress in children. This age category is characterized by strong feelings about a different range of problems, but it is very important that parents have contact with their children and can provide timely support and suggest the right ways out of this or that situation. This will avoid the development of many somatic disorders of this condition.

Emotional stress is a state of a person’s pronounced psycho-emotional experience of conflicting life situations that acutely or long-term limit the satisfaction of his social or biological needs.

Stress is understood as a state of the body that occurs when exposed to unusual stimuli and leads to nonspecific tension in the body.

The concept of stress was introduced into the medical literature by N. Selye (1936) and described the adaptation syndrome observed in this case. This syndrome can go through three stages in its development: the anxiety stage, during which the body’s resources are mobilized; the stage of resistance, in which the body resists the aggressor if its action is compatible with the possibilities of adaptation; the stage of exhaustion, during which reserves of adaptive energy are reduced when exposed to an intense stimulus
or prolonged exposure to a weak stimulus, as well as in case of insufficiency of the body’s adaptive mechanisms. N. Selye described eustress - a syndrome that promotes health, and distress - a harmful or unpleasant syndrome. The latter is considered as a disease of adaptation that occurs due to a violation of homeostasis (constancy of the internal environment of the body). Stress is also understood as a functional state of the body that arises as a result of an external negative impact on its mental functions, nervous processes or the activity of peripheral organs. The biological significance of stress is defined as the process of mobilizing the body's defenses, that is, the initial stage of managing adaptive processes. Stress is a phenomenon of awareness that arises when comparing
between the demand placed on an individual and his ability to cope with this demand. Lack of balance in this mechanism causes stress and a response to it.

Some authors do not see any difference between stress and other reactions of the body. M. Vigas (1980) considers stress as a reaction of the body, developed during phylogenesis, to the action of agents that actually or symbolically signal the danger of violating its integrity. According to K.V. Sudakov (1976), the specificity of emotional stress is reflected in the statement that it develops in conditions when it is not possible to achieve a result that is vital for satisfying biological or social needs, and is accompanied by a complex of somato-vegetative reactions, and activation of the sympathetic-adrenal system mobilizes the body to fight. According to V.V. Suvorova (1975), it is difficult to distinguish between stress and emotional reactions. Nevertheless, K.V. Sudakov (1976) believes that emotional stress is characterized by a generalized distribution of sympathetic and parasympathetic excitations, leading in some individuals to disruption of the cardiovascular system, in others to ulceration of the gastrointestinal tract.

The most sensitive to the effects of extreme and damaging factors is the emotional apparatus, which is the first to be included in the stress reaction, which is associated with the involvement of emotions in the architectonics of any purposeful behavioral act and specifically in the apparatus of the acceptor of the results of the action. As a result, autonomic functional systems and their specific endocrine support are activated, regulating behavioral reactions. In this case, a tense state can be caused by a mismatch in the possibilities of achieving vital results that satisfy the body’s leading needs in the external environment, as well as by primary, mainly hormonal, changes in the internal environment of the body, causing a disruption of its homeostasis. During stress, the key system of the brain is the limbic-cortical relationship.

Instead of mobilizing the body's resources to overcome difficulties, it may cause serious disorders. The mechanism of emotional stress consists of a long aftereffect, summation, and a perverted reaction of neurons in the central nervous system to neurotransmitters and neuropeptides. With repeated repetition or with a long duration of affective reactions due to protracted life difficulties, emotional arousal can take on a stagnant stationary form. In these cases, even when the situation normalizes, stagnant emotional arousal does not weaken. Moreover, it constantly activates the central formations of the autonomic nervous system, and through them disrupts the activity of internal organs and systems. If there are weak links in the body, then they become the main ones in the formation of the disease.

The most important role in the mechanism of development of emotional stress is played by primary disorders in the ventromedial part of the hypothalamus, the basal-lateral region of the amygdala, the septum and the reticular formation. It is the mismatch of activity in these structures that leads to changes in the normal functioning of the cardiovascular system, gastrointestinal tract, blood coagulation system, and disorder of the immune system.

Emotional stress is usually social in origin. Their frequency increases with the development of scientific and technological progress, the acceleration of the pace of life, information overload, increasing urbanization, and environmental distress. Thus, the significance of changes in the body under the influence of emotional stress is great. Resistance to it varies from person to person. Some are more predisposed, others are very resistant. However, the development of clinically significant nervous or somatic diseases in a child depends on a number of conditions. Such conditions should be considered the mental and biological characteristics of the individual, the social environment and the characteristics of events that cause serious emotional reactions.