Wg Cdr Juhi Borgohain 6 Aerospace Safety J u n e 2 0 1 2 INDIAN AIR FORCE
Mental health is an important aspect of total positive health. Every physical ailment has a mental component and every mental illness has a physical component. The WHO Expert Committee defines mental health as ‘the capacity of an individual to establish harmonious relations with others and to participate in or contribute constructively to change in the social environment’. Stress There is a lot of talk going around these days about stress. Almost every week, some medical journal or lay magazine brings out an article on this issue. Most of the time, doctors also tell their patients to cut down on their stress. However, to the general public and patients, it is quite vague and confusing. What is stress Why does it occur Can we do away with it Such questions can be quite intriguing. Stress Response It is actually not the stress that concerns us; what really concerns us is the “Stress Response”. This is the sum total of body reaction, both physiological and psychological, in response to a “stressor”. So, it is not really the “Stressor” (i.e. the situation) that leads to stress but our perception of that event, the meaning we attach to it and the way we react or respond to it, that leads to symptoms or diseases of stress. Stimuli from the environment or thoughts generated within the mind become amicable or inimical depending on whether they generate positive or negative effect. An inimical reaction brings on the fight response if one is angry and the flight response if one is insecure. We can alter our stress response from inimical to amicable and thereby cope with the stress stimulus. For example, let us say, to jump down to the ground from the roof, just 12 feet high, may be tremendously stressful for most of us. Majority of us, on looking down at the ground, would feel “butterflies in the stomach”. However, for a seasoned paratrooper, it would be fun. So, it is not the stressor (events, persons or environment) but our own interpretation and how we react decides whether we will get “stressed” or not. The Life Saving Stress Response The stress response in our body is meant for a protective and desirable reason. It is rather life saving. Evolution wise, our primitive ancestors, the Early Men, were exposed to various dangers at most unsuspected times - eg -when a hungry tiger suddenly pounced on them. To survive such flash emergencies, nature developed the “stress response” or “fight or flight” response in our body. Within milliseconds this would cause the heart to beat faster and more strongly and the blood pressure to rise (so that more and more blood laden with oxygen and glucose could go to the muscles, to either fight it out or run away). The breathing would become deep and extra glucose would be pumped into the blood by the liver, so that more of sugar and oxygen could be taken by the blood to the active muscles. Kidneys start saving water so that blood volume can increase, digestion reduces and blood from digestive organs is diverted to the active muscles. In addition, the blood clotting mechanism would increase so as to quickly seal off the wounds and minimize blood loss due to bleeding from injuries. So, where does all this fit into the problems of stress that we are talking about Well, the same stress response which was so protective during the evolutionary stages of human race has become a major hazard to our health. In our modern age life, we seldom face the kind of physical danger for which nature had designed the stress response. Even today, we need it on INDIAN AIR FORCE 2 0 1 2 J u n e Aerospace Safety 7