Stress-Effects on the Immune System and Psychological Disorders Dissertation

Stress-Effects on the Immune System and Psychological Disorders - Dissertation Example The author of the essay "Stress-Effects on the Immune System and Psychological Disorders" begins with a short introduction chapter. The authors assumes not all stress is bad. The right amount of stress is beneficial to the body but when the body is constantly exposed to negative stressors, it affects the health of the individual. Stress causes changes that weaken our immune system and as a result, health can be negatively affected. In this scenario, infections and illnesses can flare up. In people who have been diagnosed with psychological disorders, stress seems to have a detrimental effect and knowledge regarding measures to avoid stress and manage the different external stressors should be imparted to the caregivers as well as the sick themselves. The word ‘stress’ has different implications for different people. The layman defines it as tension, unpleasant external force or an emotional upheaval. Psychologists have defined stress in different ways. The most commonly used definition of stress was developed by Lazarus and Launier who regarded stress as a transaction between people and the environment with interaction between stressor and distress. Cannon’s fight or flight model was one of the earliest models which proposed that external threats elicited a fight or flight response which was accompanied by physiological changes. Seyle’s General Adaptation Syndrome had three stages in the stress response, the first being the alarm stage, the second the resistance stage and the third being the exhaustion stage.