How stress affects

How stress affects

On the basis that the organism acts as an integrated whole, so that we cannot separate the physical, biological or psychological aspects that are given together in any response to stress, let us see what happens in our body, when it produces the stress response, in the three systems: physiological, cognitive and motor or behavioural.

Physiological

Stress responses travel through the sympathetic nervous system, activating the responses of fight or flight which, at a physiological level, use several systems: endocrine, nervous and immune, involving multiple networks. It is normal to have an increase in heart rate and blood pressure, general muscle tension, sweating, increased respiration…etc.

Cognitive

When you feel stressed it brings about a cognitive evaluation process in which different aspects are involved. In the first place, automatic processes of assessing a situation appear. There is also the appearance of a conscious process of assessing the relevant and irrelevant elements, favourable and unfavourable elements of the environment in a complementary way,an evaluation is made on the resources themselves and on environmental resources and finally also brings about the selection of coping strategies focusing on managing emotion: relaxation, breathing, use of food, smoking to relax, getting away from the problem… or even the problem: search for information, analysis of the problem… 

The behaviours that come in the face of stress do not only depend on the characteristics of the person and the coping strategies that they use, they also depend on other factors such as learning suitable behaviours or the release of behaviours that have been useful in the past. Basic behaviours are: fight, flight, avoidance and apathy or mental block. 

In this course you will learn new behaviours aimed at managing your stress.