What is Stress?
Stress is often defined as our body’s response to feeling under threat, or under pressure. When we feel stressed, our body releases two types of hormones, called adrenaline and cortisol. These hormones are released as part of the ‘fight or flight’ response; they help to prepare our bodies to either fight or flee from a stressor.
For short periods of time, this isn’t harmful. In fact, some people can find a degree of stress to be energising or motivating – for example, having to work to a deadline. Stress generally becomes a problem when it goes on for a long period of time, or if it is very intense. When this is the case, stress can affect both our mental health and our physical health.
In some circumstances, stress can affect whole groups of people at the same time, such as in the workplace, and even impact whole communities or occur at a societal level. You don’t need to look too far back for an example of this – the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 caused a great degree of stress to billions of people across the world.