Reducing Stress

Course overview

This course on stress reduction reports that an estimated 75-90% of primary care visits are stress-related while in 1996, Prevention magazine published a survey wherein 75% of respondents said they experienced great stress at least one day weekly. In the eighties, Time magazine called stress the Epidemic of the Eighties. While some stress is necessary for survival, an excess of stress can cause harm. Hans Selye, MD is one of the first doctors to study the effects of stress on humans. He described stress as, a non-specific response by the body to a demand. Lyle H. Miller, PhD. and Alma Dell Smith, PhD. describe stress as, the state of dynamic tension created when you respond to perceived demands and pressures from outside and from within yourself. This course refers to Miller and Smith's classification of stress. It discusses three types of stress, which are acute, episodic acute and chronic. Each type is discussed and examples are given. The course reviews some of the earliest research done by Dr. Hans Selye, describing the General Adaptation Syndrome, known today as the stress syndrome, which involves three stages of adaptation. The course explains the Hypothalamic Pituitary Adrenal axis and the major role it plays in the regulation of the neuroendocrine system as it relates to stress. This will help the clinician explain how the body responds to and processes stress. Upon completion of this course, the clinician will also understand the impact of stress on heart disease as well as the physiological mechanism that mediates the link.