Stress Laurel Edmundson Most of us have experienced the unpleasant effects of stress-heightened anxiety, gastrointestinal distress, sleeplessness, appetite loss, and so on. These days there is significant emphasis in corporations, schools, and in individual families placed on learning how to effectively cope with stress and not let it control your life. But not much attention has been focused on the positive aspects of stress. Stress may well be a healthy impetus for change or adaptation. The universally negative connotation of the word may not be a reflection of the stressors themselves, but of our own maladaptive coping mechanisms.
Stress has many different meanings.
The American Psychological Association distinguishes among three different kinds of stress-acute, episodic acute, and chronic. Episodic acute stress describes the frequent recurrence of acute stress. Finally, chronic stress is the most severe of the three. It's the stress of poverty, of dysfunctional families, of being trapped in an unhappy marriage or in a despised job or career. However it is defined, stress is not a new issue for animals.