WHAT IS STRESS?

Stress is your body's way of responding to any kind of demand. It can be caused by both good and bad
experiences. When people feel stressed by something going on around them, their bodies react by releasing
chemicals into the blood. These chemicals give people more energy and strength, which can be a good thing if
their stress is caused by physical danger. But this can also be a bad thing, if their stress is in response to something
emotional and there is no outlet for this extra energy and strength. This class will discuss different causes of stress,
how stress affects you, the difference between 'good' or 'positive' stress and 'bad' or 'negative' stress, and some
common facts about how stress affects people today.
http://mtstcil.org/skills/stress-definition-1.html

TYPES OF STRESS

Physical Stress
A common type of stress is physical stress, which refers to actual physical activities and events that wreak havoc
on the human body. One good example is travel. Traveling frequently can send you to different time zones, which
makes sleeping and waking difficult. Physical stress also includes stress brought on by sleeping too much, not
getting enough sleep, spending too many hours on your feet or working long hours. If you ever spent a day chasing
your kids around an amusement park or stuck in an airport and dealing with flight delays, you have likely
experienced physical stress.
Emotional Stress
Out of all the different kinds of stress, emotional stress is the most common. This can occur after you go through
an intense break up or divorce, lose a loved one, have a fight with your spouse or experience any other problem
that causes you to feel depressed or anxious. Emotional stress often manifests in the same way that depression
does. You may experience weight changes, changes in how you fall asleep or how long you sleep, feelings of
isolation and mood swings. Emotional stress can also occur when you feel overwhelmed at home or at work.
Traumatic Stress
When thinking about the types of stress, many people don’t think about traumatic stress. Traumatic stress is a
type of stress that occurs because of some type of trauma to the human body and may lead to intense pain, coma
or even death. It often relates to some kind of physical change that occurs. If you went through an operation, your
body may experience stress until you recover from that surgery. A car accident, second or third degree burns or
even a case of pneumonia may all cause traumatic stress.
https://www.onlinepsychologydegree.info/faq/what-are-the-different-kinds-of-stress/

Acute stress
Acute stress is the most common form of stress. It comes from demands and pressures of the recent past and
anticipated demands and pressures of the near future. Acute stress is thrilling and exciting in small doses, but too
much is exhausting. A fast run down a challenging ski slope, for example, is exhilarating early in the day. That
same ski run late in the day is taxing and wearing. Skiing beyond your limits can lead to falls and broken bones.
By the same token, overdoing on short-term stress can lead to psychological distress, tension headaches, upset
stomach and other symptoms.
Fortunately, acute stress symptoms are recognized by most people. It's a laundry list of what has gone awry in
their lives: the auto accident that crumpled the car fender, the loss of an important contract, a deadline they're
rushing to meet, their child's occasional problems at school and so on.
Because it is short term, acute stress doesn't have enough time to do the extensive damage associated with long-
term stress. The most common symptoms are:
 Emotional distress — some combination of anger or irritability, anxiety and depression, the three stress emotions.
 Muscular problems including tension headache, back pain, jaw pain and the muscular tensions that lead to pulled
muscles and tendon and ligament problems.
 Stomach, gut and bowel problems such as heartburn, acid stomach, flatulence, diarrhea, constipation and irritable
bowel syndrome.
 Transient over arousal leads to elevation in blood pressure, rapid heartbeat, sweaty palms, heart palpitations,
dizziness, migraine headaches, cold hands or feet, shortness of breath and chest pain.
Acute stress can crop up in anyone's life, and it is highly treatable and manageable.
Episodic acute stress
There are those, however, who suffer acute stress frequently, whose lives are so disordered that they are studies
in chaos and crisis. They're always in a rush, but always late. If something can go wrong, it does. They take on
too much, have too many irons in the fire, and can't organize the slew of self-inflicted demands and pressures
clamoring for their attention. They seem perpetually in the clutches of acute stress.
It is common for people with acute stress reactions to be over aroused, short-tempered, irritable, anxious and
tense. Often, they describe themselves as having "a lot of nervous energy." Always in a hurry, they tend to be
abrupt, and sometimes their irritability comes across as hostility. Interpersonal relationships deteriorate rapidly
when others respond with real hostility. The workplace becomes a very stressful place for them.
The cardiac prone, "Type A" personality described by cardiologists, Meter Friedman and Ray Rosenman, is
similar to an extreme case of episodic acute stress. Type A's have an "excessive competitive drive, aggressiveness,
impatience, and a harrying sense of time urgency." In addition there is a "free-floating, but well-rationalized form
of hostility, and almost always a deep-seated insecurity." Such personality characteristics would seem to create
frequent episodes of acute stress for the Type A individual. Friedman and Rosenman found Type A's to be much
more likely to develop coronary heat disease than Type B's, who show an opposite pattern of behavior.
Another form of episodic acute stress comes from ceaseless worry. "Worry warts" see disaster around every
corner and pessimistically forecast catastrophe in every situation. The world is a dangerous, unrewarding, punitive
place where something awful is always about to happen. These "awfulizers" also tend to be over aroused and
tense, but are more anxious and depressed than angry and hostile.
The symptoms of episodic acute stress are the symptoms of extended over arousal: persistent tension headaches,
migraines, hypertension, chest pain and heart disease. Treating episodic acute stress requires intervention on a
number of levels, generally requiring professional help, which may take many months.
Often, lifestyle and personality issues are so ingrained and habitual with these individuals that they see nothing
wrong with the way they conduct their lives. They blame their woes on other people and external events.
Frequently, they see their lifestyle, their patterns of interacting with others, and their ways of perceiving the world
as part and parcel of who and what they are.
Sufferers can be fiercely resistant to change. Only the promise of relief from pain and discomfort of their
symptoms can keep them in treatment and on track in their recovery program.
Chronic stress
While acute stress can be thrilling and exciting, chronic stress is not. This is the grinding stress that wears people
away day after day, year after year. Chronic stress destroys bodies, minds and lives. It wreaks havoc through
long-term attrition. It's the stress of poverty, of dysfunctional families, of being trapped in an unhappy marriage
or in a despised job or career. It's the stress that the never-ending "troubles" have brought to the people of Northern
Ireland, the tensions of the Middle East have brought to the Arab and Jew, and the endless ethnic rivalries that
have been brought to the people of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Chronic stress comes when a person never sees a way out of a miserable situation. It's the stress of unrelenting
demands and pressures for seemingly interminable periods of time. With no hope, the individual gives up
searching for solutions.
Some chronic stresses stem from traumatic, early childhood experiences that become internalized and remain
forever painful and present. Some experiences profoundly affect personality. A view of the world, or a belief
system, is created that causes unending stress for the individual (e.g., the world is a threatening place, people will
find out you are a pretender, you must be perfect at all times). When personality or deep-seated convictions and
beliefs must be reformulated, recovery requires active self-examination, often with professional help.
The worst aspect of chronic stress is that people get used to it. They forget it's there. People are immediately
aware of acute stress because it is new; they ignore chronic stress because it is old, familiar, and sometimes,
almost comfortable.
Chronic stress kills through suicide, violence, heart attack, stroke and, perhaps, even cancer. People wear down
to a final, fatal breakdown. Because physical and mental resources are depleted through long-term attrition, the
symptoms of chronic stress are difficult to treat and may require extended medical as well as behavioral treatment
and stress management.
WHAT IS BEHAVIORAL STRESS?
a change from a person's normal behavior in response to a stressor.

https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/stress+behavior

CIRCUIT
WHAT IS A BRAIN CIRCUIT?
Brain circuits are really important for the brain, simply because neurons don’t work in isolation. What allows
our brain to process information is the fact that one neuron sends information to the next and so on, and the
true connection between the neurons is what matters. So brain circuits (that we can observe with neuroimaging
for instance) reflect the fact that a number of different regions connect with each other to work together and
treat the information jointly.

https://www.dnalc.org/view/1961-Brain-circuits.html
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STRESS AND CIRCUIT
The brain scans revealed a sequence of three distinct patterns of response to stress, compared to non-stress
exposure. The first pattern was characterized by sustained activation of brain regions known to signal, monitor
and process potential threats. The second response pattern involved increased activation, and then decreased
activation, of a circuit connecting brain areas involved in stress reaction and adaptation, perhaps as a means of
reducing the initial distress to a perceived threat.
This pattern involved what Dr. Sinha and colleagues described as “neuroflexibility,” in a circuit between the
brain’s medial prefrontal cortex and forebrain regions including the ventral striatum, extended amygdala, and
hippocampus during sustained stress exposure. Dr. Sinha and her colleagues explain that this neuroflexibility was
characterized by initially decreased activation of this circuit in response to stress, followed by its increased
activation with sustained stress exposure.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/researchers-identify-brain-circuits-help-people-cope-
stress
ROLE OF ARCHITECTURE IN THE PICTURE BETWEEN STRESS AND CIRCUIT
I beg to differ with Dr. Rettew's conclusion that the new study he cites "proves" that ADHD is real. The study Dr.
Rettew cites leaves out a significant factor in children's brain development: namely, the study fails to recognize the
degree to which very early exposure to stressful experiences and environments can affect the architecture of the
child's developing brain. That is, factors in the young child's environment can change the size of the child's brain.

There are many studies that support the conclusion that experience changes the brain. See, for example, a working
paper from Harvard University's Center on the Developing Child "Excessive Stress Disrupts the Architecture of
the Developing Brain."

This study points out that "the neural circuits for dealing with stress are particularly malleable (or “plastic”) during
the fetal and early childhood periods. Early experiences shape how readily these circuits are activated and how
well they can be contained and turned off. Toxic stress during this early period can affect developing brain
circuits."

Stress mobilizes hormones like cortisol and adrenaline in the child. "Sustained or frequent activation of the
hormonal systems that respond to stress can have serious developmental consequences, some of which may last
well past the time of stress exposure. When children experience toxic stress, their cortisol levels remain elevated
for prolonged periods of time. Both animal and human studies show that long-term elevations in cortisol levels
can alter the function of a number of neural systems, suppress the immune response, and even change the
architecture of regions in the brain that are essential for learning and memory."
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/suffer-the-children/201805/early-toxic-stress-changes-brain-
structure