What is stress?

How do we define it?  It is hard to measure because what could be for one person a very stressful situation, for another the same situation could be a fun experience.  It depends on the person and each of us need to gauge what we can handle.  The same could be true for physical activity or the foods we consume.  Some people can't handle as much physical stress than others or need a diet that is more restrictive than others.

The first researcher of stress

In 1936 Hans Selye, a Hungarian endocrinologist while working in Canada made a ground breaking discovery that earned him recognition with his work on stress and its affect on health.  His experiments, led him to the idea that in some cases, disease was not caused by a microbe.  Instead his experiments showed that various noxious stimuli either of emotional, physical or chemical origin could disrupt homeostasis and create conditions of disease in the body.  This began when he saw the same reactions taking place in mice no matter what noxious substance were injected into their bodies.  The common result to this stress, was adrenal hypertrophy, thymus gland atrophy, along with gastric and duodenal ulcers.  Keep Reading