What Is Stres1

What is Stress?
Stress is not a
useful term for scientists because it is such a
highly subjective phenomenon that it defies
definition. And if you can’t define stress, how
can you possibly measure it? The term
“stress”, as it is currently used was coined by
Hans Selye in 1936, who defined it as “the
non-specific response of the body to any
demand for change”. Selye had noted in
numerous experiments that laboratory animals
subjected to acute but different noxious
physical and emotional stimuli (blaring light,
deafening noise, extremes of heat or cold,
perpetual frustration) all exhibited the same
pathologic changes of stomach ulcerations,
shrinkage of lymphoid tissue and enlargement
of the adrenals. He later demonstrated that
persistent stress could cause these animals to
develop various diseases similar to those seen
in humans, such as heart attacks, stroke,
kidney disease and rheumatoid arthritis. At the
time, it was believed that most diseases were
caused by specific but different pathogens.
Tuberculosis was due to the tubercle bacillus,
anthrax by the anthrax bacillus, syphilis by a
spirochete, etc. What Selye proposed was just
the opposite, namely that many different
insults could cause the same disease, not only
in animals, but in humans as well.
Selye’s theories attracted considerable

attention and stress soon became a popular
buzzword that completely ignored Selye’s
original definition. Some people used stress to
refer to an overbearing or bad boss or some
other unpleasant situation they were subjected
to. For many, stress was their reaction to this
in the form of chest pain, heartburn, headache
or palpitations. Others used stress to refer to
what they perceived as the end result of these
repeated responses, such as an ulcer or heart
attack. Many scientists complained about this
confusion and one physician concluded in a
1951 issue of the British Medical Journal that,
“Stress in addition to being itself, was also the
cause of itself, and the result of itself.”
Unfortunately, Selye was not aware that stress

had been used for centuries in physics to
explain elasticity, the property of a material
that allows it to resume its original size and
shape after having been compressed or
stretched by an external force. As expressed
in Hooke’s Law of 1658, the magnitude of an
external force, or stress, produces a
proportional amount of deformation, or strain,
in a malleable metal. This created even more
confusion when his research had to be
translated into foreign languages. There was
no suitable word or phrase that could convey
what he meant, since he was really describing
strain. In 1946, when he was asked to give an
address at the prestigious Collège de France,
the academicians responsible for maintaining
the purity of the French language struggled
with this problem for several days, and
subsequently decided that a new word would
have to be created. Apparently, the male
chauvinists prevailed, and le stress was born,
quickly followed by el stress, il stress, lo
stress, der stress in other European
languages, and similar neologisms in Russian,
Japanese, Chinese and Arabic. Stress is one
of the very few words you will see preserved in
English in these and other languages that do
not use the Roman alphabet.
Because it was apparent that most people

viewed stress as some unpleasant threat,
Selye subsequently had to create a new word,
stressor, to distinguish stimulus from
response. Stress was generally considered as
being synonymous with distress and
dictionaries defined it as “physical, mental, or
emotional strain or tension” or “a condition or
feeling experienced when a person perceives
that demands exceed the personal and social
resources the individual is able to mobilize.”
Thus, stress was put in a negative light and its
positive effects ignored. However, stress can
be helpful and good when it motivates people
to accomplish more.
As illustrated to the left,
increased stress results in increased
productivity – up to a point, after which things
go rapidly downhill. However, that point or
peak differs for each of us, so you need to be
sensitive to the early warning symptoms and
signs that suggest a stress overload is starting
to push you over the hump. Such signals also
differ for each of us and can be so subtle that
they are often ignored until it is too late. Not
infrequently, others are aware that you may be
headed for trouble before you are.
Any definition of stress should therefore also

include good stress, or what Selye called
eustress. For example, winning a race or
election can be just as stressful as losing, or
more so. A passionate kiss and contemplating
what might follow is stressful, but hardly the
same as having a root canal procedure.
Selye struggled unsuccessfully all his life to

find a satisfactory definition of stress. In
attempting to extrapolate his animal studies to
humans so that people would understand what
he meant, he redefined stress as “The rate of
wear and tear on the body”. This is actually a
pretty good description of biological aging so it
is not surprising that increased stress can
accelerate many aspects of the aging process.
In his later years, when asked to define stress,
he told reporters, “Everyone knows what
stress is, but nobody really knows.”
As noted, stress is difficult to define because it

is so different for each of us. A good example
is afforded by observing passengers on a
steep roller coaster ride. Some are hunched
down in the back seats, eyes shut, jaws
clenched and white knuckled with an iron grip
on the retaining bar. They can’t wait for the
ride in the torture chamber to end so they can
get back on solid ground and scamper away.
But up front are the wide-eyed thrill seekers,
yelling and relishing each steep plunge who
race to get on the very next ride. And in
between you may find a few with an air of
nonchalance that borders on boredom. So,
was the roller coaster ride stressful?
The roller coaster analogy is useful in

explaining why the same stressor can differ so
much for each of us. What distinguished the
passengers in the back from those up front
was the sense of control they had over the
event. While neither group had any more or
less control their perceptions and expectations
were quite different. Many times we create our
own stress because of faulty perceptions you
can learn to correct. You can teach people to
move from the back of the roller coaster to the
front, and, as Eleanor Roosevelt noted,
nobody can make you feel inferior without your
consent. While everyone can’t agree on a
definition of stress, all of our experimental and
clinical research confirms that the sense of
having little or no control is always distressful –
and that’s what stress is all about.

What Is Stres1

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What is Stress?

Selye’s theories attracted considerable

Unfortunately, Selye was not aware that stress

Because it was apparent that most people

Any definition of stress should therefore also

Selye struggled unsuccessfully all his life to

As noted, stress is difficult to define because it

The roller coaster analogy is useful in

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