Human Response To Stress

Stress is a state of mind that takes place when the tension of circumstances accumulate. Researchers have explored how that affects the human body. The question has often, been proposed to why we get stressed. Studies have been done to explore how that affects our body physically, mentally, and emotionally? Since we all will experience stress at some time or another it may be beneficial to our health to understand it more. The human response to stress within the body is displayed through physical, mental and emotional responses. These responses can influence one, positive or negatively. Each response serves a purpose. Physical, mental, and emotional responses assist our human psyche to thrive and flourish. Physical response to stress …show more content…
Mental response to stress are seen in the way one is able to function cognitively. When one has a lot of mental stress to contend with a decline in performance is noted. The United States Airforce Operations did a study that indicted performance is affected by stress. They also concluded that certain tasks and strategies would help the Airforce cadets to improve their cognitive functions. Due to the nature of their jobs this is very important to recognize mental stressors and it’s response. The article Cognitive performance and resilience to stress states, “Understanding that cognitive performance may otherwise suffer under stress, it is important to encourage system and human-machine interface designs that support efficient task prioritization, tools to enable task simplification and options to support information and resource management.” (Field, Bolton,Yaroush, Bourne,pg.287) One could then conclude that efficient task priority is of importance in reducing mental stress. Thus, allowing one to be more attentive, function more effectively under mental …show more content…
Stressful events are arousing, causing attendant changes in states of the organism, in cognitive processes, and in performance. Of greatest relevance to behavior in emergencies are the stress states of (1) strain or mobilization, wherein the person recruits untapped resources to maintain performance levels when arousal is supra-optimal, (2) degradation, wherein mobilization fails and performance suffers, but only gradually, (3) choking, wherein performance might fail as the organism overthinks the tasks at hand, and (4) panic, wherein performance reverts to non-cognitive primitive modes of behavior.” (Bourne, Yaroush, 2003 pg.37) From the studies done by Yaroush and his team at the University of Colorado, one can clearly see a correlation between the cognitive process and stress related response. When over stressed the resources within the psyche are maxed out and a person’s ability to use cognitive reason is limited or