June 2012 - Indian Airforce

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