Stress

Towards a definition

In a strict sense term the definition of the stress does not include/understand the response of the organization to the constraints but only the constraints they even, on the other hand the term " general syndrome of adaptation" is adapted to speak about the answers to the constraints.

Biologiquement speaking the stress corresponds to the forced and aggressions undergone by an organization which will prevent it from living under optimal conditions and will generate an answer of this organization to be able to live under better conditions.

In psychology, the concept of stress gathers several notions :

change, the external cause causing the reaction, the agent stressant ; one can indicate this by the terms of “constraint” or “nervous pressure” ;
reaction of adaptation to this constraint, which one can indicate by the term “tension nervous”.

The study of the stress utilizes the Médecine, the Psychologie and the Sociologie.

Ambiguity of the concept of stress, preamble to a definition

Each one of us at the present time could use the word “stress” to define what it felt at one time or another of its existence and at the present time, it is very with the mode to apply this term to all kinds of situations of the life as much public than private.

But the man “of the street” does not give really a precise definition of the stress insofar as it does not need any since it feels it already corporally. Thus the stress, on a relatively restricted level of comprehension, is already included/understood intuitively by each one of us. Unfortunately, this obviousness of felt is used as alibi with a little developed and nonconsensual definition.

The definition of the stress is often related to the concept of performance. However, the bond between these two concepts is not so obvious and does not find a consensus. Indeed, for certain individuals, the stress is vital with their performance, it multiplies by ten their chances to conclude what they have undertook. It is accordingly that one can intend some to say that the stress - or rather in their term the “challenge”, the “motivation” - is the condition sine qua non of their socio-professional success. For other individuals, the stress inhibits their capacities and prevents them from concluding what they undertook. Accordingly there, a quantity of therapies anti-stress were born on the service market of Bien-être. Here, the stress is the enemy who should be fought at all costs to be able to reach a better life under all reports/ratios.

It is thus noted that the relation stress-performance, although always evoked when one speaks about stress, is not prone to a consensus and could come from a definition of the stress too little excavated at the base or from a relation complex but interesting to study between the stress and the performance. From a scientific point of view, the problem of the consensus is also present and the concept of stress remains in vagueness, the total one.

A first source of inaccuracy lies in the fact that the stress term “is already a whole program since it indicates at the same time the responsible agent, the reaction to this agent and the state in which that is which reacts” (Dantzer, 2002).

One second source of inaccuracy lies in the fact that a great number of disciplines were interested in the stress and that they have all insisted on the aspects holding to them with heart and while dropping the different ones. What it is necessary to include/understand however, it is that the stress, except the fact that it is all at the same time the situation, the state and the reaction, must be explained according to a bio-psycho-social skew and relationnist since he consists of a crowd of factors, mechanisms or answers, all bio-psycho-social whose interaction remains extremely complex.

The concept of stress

The stress often has a negative connotation because people associate it with the fear or the anger, which are emotions which disturb us. However, a great joy, a great success can also cause physiological reactions (muscular tension, tiredness, etc). There are two types of stress: stress helping, beneficial for our organization (“eustress”) and the harmful stress, awkward (“dystress”). If the level of tension is adapted to the situation, the action, it is beneficial. If on the contrary, it is not adapted, disproportionate, there will be even more tensions and thus, physiological and psychological consequences. One can thus affirm that the stress, it is the whole of the reactions of the organization (positive or negative) to a request for adaptation.

It should be known that the stress exists for a very long time already. The human ones always had to face destabilizing situations and which cause an imbalance. Today, we know these many situations. They are for example, our concerns concerning our economic future, old age, health, the death of a close person, etc Most of the time, we are satisfied to try to solve the problem without trying to know from where it comes.

The man thus will perceive the requests for his environment, will treat them, and try to react to these last by the means of a range of innate behaviors and asset which constitutes a “personal potential” of answer, potential which can differ largely from one person to another. The majority of the researchers being interested in the stress agree to say that the stress has a role to play in this personal potential of answer. However, it is on the level of the nature of this role that the scientists did not find agreements.

The stress could have as causes an emotional excitation. Thus not-specificity would be due to stimuli presenting a common point which is the emotion. We will see thereafter that this not-specificity can indeed be given in doubt, just as the single bond between the stress and the emotion.

Private clinic

The stress is a whole of physiological reactions (Sueur S, acceleration of the heart and Respiration) and psychological (concern, sleep disorders) which appear when a person is subjected to a change of situation.

More simply, the stress it is a feeling which one tests when one is confronted with a situation in which one does not believe to be able to face correctly. It causes a feeling of faintness. It is as a reflex of the organization which acts against the external aggressions. That will start a whole of nervous and hormonal reactions.

The stress can allow a mobilization of the physical and mental forces. For example, the rise in the cardiac rhythm and respiratory (due in particular to a discharge of Adrenalin) makes it possible to better oxygenate the muscles ; it is an animal reaction (preparation with the escape or the combat vis-a-vis a danger). But it can also make lose the means and harm the action ; it is probably about another animal reaction (camouflage implying the immobility).

But this situation exhausts the organization. A prolonged situation of stress involves a tiredness and supports the appearance of diseases, in particular cardiovascular ; the stress with work is one of the first causes stop-disease (overwork, one speaks sometimes about burnout or Syndrome of professional exhaustion to indicate an extreme wear with work).

Causes of the stress

One with the practice to associate the stress with situations created by human relations (passage of an examination, interpersonal conflict…) but this syndrome appears for all changement : travel (cultural Choc, jet lag), climate change (for example when one leaves in the cold), professional event (Licenciement, new work, shift), event family or sentimental (removal, Mariage, Divorce, Naissance, death, news meets, argument), body change (Adolescence, Ménopause)…

Nonthe specificity of the stress

The concept of Stress can be defined according to Doctor Dufour (2006) in Entendre the words which enserrement say the evils like one/strangulation of the invidu by the development of successive fears. The emotion fear can cause only evils of acute stress, psychological (syndrome of post-traumatic stress) or somatic with a restricted range of expression: they are primarily cardiovascular diseases related to the spasm vasoconstrictor (angor spastic, cerebral infarction, ictus, hypertensive push) and gastric lesions (ulcer of stress). In 2005, a study showing more than 2000 medical articles recognizes the importance of the chronic stress in the genesis of multiple affections.

a concept of laboratory

The Peur generates the emotive reaction of the amygdala, rather summary, which would be limited to the options of escape or combat. The inhibition of the action can be the factor starting of prolonged disorders neuro-psycho-immulogic leading to multiple pathologies, which for the moment do not have any specificity.

But is the dogma escape/combat as solution with confrontation in the event of fear right? The trilogy anglosaxone fright/fligt/fight which one could transcribe in French by fright/escape/confrontation would be the single biological reaction of the animal in situation of stress or in front of a threatening Stimulus. As its name seems to predestine there, Laborit was before a whole genius of Laboratory. Its experimentation is carried out with rats of breeding locked up in cages, which is far from the condition of the wild animal in nature. So for health/survival of an animal out of cage (or of a man!) it is allowed to speak in praise of the escape (physical or spiritual), any observer of the free wild animal life knows that the natural scenario is very different. The usual reaction of a great number of animal species is the immobilization or the imitation dissimulator, often supported by the fear which fades the teguments. Faintness vagal human, still so frequent at our time, started by the sight of blood or an acute feeling of pain, seems a reflex sympathetic nerve vestigial of the protection which offered this immobility and this paleness at the time of the attack of the bears, frequent companions of the cave man!

Irreversibility of the stressing events

If fear is the primary source of the inhibition of the action and the setting in words, the praise of the escape as solution, suggested by Laborit, remains field of the Utopia. Indeed can the man always modify the course of the events by his action? Do not exist there situations in which no physical action is possible, of the modifications of its environment to which the man does not manage to adapt, not because it is inhibited, but because there exists a real impossibility of action: either the human being forever lived nor known such a situation which he did not learn how to face or to answer, that is to say there exists an irreversibility of certain situations which no human action will be able to modify or make return in a former state. It is obvious that death is an event hitherto irreversible, except for a certain Jesus according to the Gospels, and that we personally do not have any possibility of making ressusciter one of our close relations which has just died. The death of a expensive being or its separation belongs to the list of the situations enumerated by Jacques Salome in her research of the direction of our evils.

Many other events of the life have this character of irreversibility but they are less dramatic: a divorce, a removal, a dismissal, the departure of a child of the house… often have this irreversibility for which the man can only undergo. These events of life were the subject of a scientific evaluation recognized by the medical world, in a scale dimensioned, since 1967, by an American team, carried out on a broad sample of soldiers, showing a disease risk which increases starting from a certain score reached by the individual.

Scale of weighting of the elements of the life (according to Holmes and Rahe, 1967)

Died of the spouse 100
Divorce 73
marital Separation 65
Imprisonment 65
Death of a close relative 63
Wound or physical disease 53
Marriage 50
Job loss 47
marital Reconciliation 45
Retirement 45
Disease of the spouse 44
Disease of a close relation 44
Pregnancy 40
Birth 39
Arrived of a novel member in the family 39
Modification of the financial position 38
Died of a close friend 37
Change of work 36
Modification of the number of arguments with the spouse 35
Modification of professional responsibilities 29
Departure for the house of a child 29
Difficulties with the beautiful family 29
Beginning or sick leave of the spouse 26
Beginning or end of schooling 26
Change under the living conditions 25
Change of the personal practices 24
Conflits with employer 23
Déménagements 20
Changement of the leisures 19
Changement of the social activities 18
Changement in the practices of sleep or rest 15
Changement of the number of people living in the family 15
Petites infringements of the law 11

The majority of these events of life, especially those located in top of the scale, most powerful, corresponds to new situations to which the man must adapt. However, this need for adaptation to the modifications of the environment is correlated with the concept of stress. The major disadvantage of the concept of stress is its nonspecificity, because the type of the stressing agent never yet could be connected to a particular type of disease, nor even with its release which remains very variable of an individual to another. Other factors must be taken into account with, on a side psychological and biological qualities of resistance to the stress of the individual and, other the characteristics of the stressing situation: intensity, dimension, duration, suddenness, unpredictability, innovation… It is obvious that the anticipated death of a close relation, confined to bed for several months because of a serious disease, has not generated the same stress as a sudden death without signs heralding. It is as manifest as a mourning lived in an emotional family entourage, with a respected social ritual, risk to be less stressing as the mourning of a close relation who committed suicide without leaving reasons to his act. Medicine will have progressed in vain, it will be always unable to really measure the intensity and the quality of a stressing event of which felt is always subjective. To note that in the scale of stress of Rahe, the marriage follows closely the divorce in intensity of stress. That is explained by the fact that the stress is a stimulus of loss of adaptability, as could the being a marriage in the years 1960, because the husbands left their family, their friends with the key a remote removal according to the changes of the Army (at the time and in this rather preserving medium, the trial marriage or the premarital cohabitation was not with the mode!).

a vital stress

The human being was equipped during an evolution relating to a few million with neurobiologic years of mechanisms enabling him to adapt to all the modifications of its environment, which they are physical, social and/or psychic. As showed it Claude Bernard, the living organism must maintain its equilibrium domestic (homeostasis) by mobilizing the energy useful for the processes of adjustment. This adaptation is necessary during the variations of the environment, in particular with respect to stimuli of the physiological and psychological aggression. It is this answer to the stimuli which one names from now on stress. The man lives in permanent state of stress, stimulation necessary to the biological rates/rhythms.

But if a certain level of stress is necessary to the life, the going beyond of a certain threshold can become dangerous even fatal, if it exceeds the capacities of adaptation of the organization, from where the appearance of diseases which can be quickly mortals. This relation stress/disease brings a new dimension well to the traditional medical approach. Work of Hans Selye Physiology and pathology of the exposure to the stress made of this concept new “faintness in civilization” and caused many research especially in the Anglo-Saxon countries.

Currently the stress is the only medical concept, admitted by the scientific community, which makes a bridge between the somatic psychism and diseases via the neuro-hormonal reactions. This reaction shows the participation of the brain in the genesis of the evils of the body. The Professor J.L. Dupond, Chief of the Service of Internal medicine of the CHU of Besancon, is one of the French pioneers who put forward the role of the stress. Since 1987, he wrote that “modern medicine gathered in a few years sufficient clinical arguments, biochemical, neurophysiological and immunological to grant to the immunopsychopathology the right to be born…” Professor Dupond, being based on multiple international work, attracted the attention of the medical world, hitherto deaf, on the action of the stress. It showed its influence on immunizing balance, with its intervention in certain processes of immuno-suppression, explaining which has occurred of various infections, in the allergies or certain autoimmune diseases (diseases of system), even in cancers. The adaptation of the organization to the external environment is indeed under the control of three systems of integration which ensure internal homeostasis: they are the nervous systems, endocrinien and immunizing. The first allows the transmission of signals of the electric type modulated thanks to neurotransmitters; the second uses molecular messengers or " hormones " who circulate and transmit specific information remotely; the third transmits messages thanks to cells which circulate in the organization and produce active molecules locally, the " cytokines " and antibodies.

Biological approach of the stress: history and current approach

In so far as one remembers, the word stress comes from Latin stringere who means “to make stiff”, “to tighten”, “to press”. This Latin root is taken again by the English language and in 1303 already, Robert Mannyng in his book Handlyng Synne speaks about the stress. To the 17th century, the concept of stress wants to say “state of distress” and returns to the idea of oppression, hardness of life, deprivation, tiredness, adversity, sorrow or of affliction.

As of the 18th century, the stress takes a contemporary connotation while returning to a force, pressure, constraint, influence, a main effort of the matter, bodies and even of psychism.

The doctor French physiologist Claude Bernard was one of the first to give an interpretation of the effects of the stress on our behavior, in 1868. According to him, the reactions due to the stress aim at maintaining the balance of our organization. Then, Walter Canon, an American neurophysiologist, called this research “Homéostasie” (which wants to say: “tendency of the alive bodies to stabilize their organization”).

The word “stress” appeared around 1940. At the beginning, it was an English word (which changed significance thereafter) employed in mechanics or physics, which wanted to say “force, weight, tension, load or effort”. It is only in 1963 that Hans Selye uses this word in medicine, and who defines it as being “tensions weak or strong, tested since always, and started by future events unpleasant or pleasant”. It sees “potentially destroying forces there” and speaks “about state of stress” to describe the “physical changes caused by a situation stessante”. It is the modern notion of the stress that we employ usually today.

Science will take small-with-small its rights on the concept and one notes that the stress is first of all used in metallurgical physics with the Loi of Hooke who stipulates that an external force (load) acting on a body, causes a tension of this body (stress) which can transform into deformation (strain) (Jürgen Nitsch, 1981, p43-38. In Maurer Milka, 1983).

The excessive constraint exerted on a material which becomes of this tired fact, deformed, broken, returns any attempt to turn over to the country of origin vain, since the material is much more vulnerable than it was it before, as a trombone which one would have unfolded and which it would be a question of positioning back. It is thus seen that with this use of the word stress, there is already a bond created with a certain form of adaptation where the excess of stress would make material more vulnerable.

Starting from this use of the metallurgy concept, an analogy is created for the alive one. It occurs then the idea that the excessively aggressive situations (load) cause an important stress being able to involve physical or mental diseases (strain) . It is accordingly that William Osler (1849 - 1919), cardiologist, watch that a heavy work and heavy responsibilities lead to the torments and the anxiety whose persistence can involve medical problems.

As of the 20th century, the use of the concept of stress at the living organisms will spread, this on the basis of concept such as homeostasis, concept created starting from the cellular theory, and the Darwinienne adaptation. This tying stress-homeostasis-adaptation will make its way until our days and will produce an abundant and fertile literature.

The tying of these three concepts constitutes the approach known as biological of the stress and will make it possible to explain to its way the function of the stress which is the adaptation to the environment, this in some limiting, and thus which is used for the maintenance of the life.

As one has just said it, the biological model attaches much importance to the adaptation darwinienne. In fact, it is the hard core of this thought. To summarize the theory of Darwin, it will be said that the adaptation corresponds to the whole of the internal and external correlations which make that an organization can live in a certain manner in a given habitat, and to contribute to it to the perpetuation of the species to which it belongs. This adaptation is done in favor of the natural selection which takes the form of problems which are posed at the organization which, if it is not able to exceed them, will make it die. Thus one can summarize the Natural selection.

Many authors could show that to adapt or be adapted to a problem can be made several manners. And for the biological theory of the stress, this last fact part of the adaptive effort by preparing the living organisms with fast and intense muscular answers increasing the capacity consequently to flee or fight and thus to survive.

We will see thereafter the contributions and the limits of such an explanation, but before, we must somewhat recall the decoration in which this theory took seat.

Homeostasis and adaptation

Hippocrates by taking again the theory pythagorician Humeur S claims that all “dyscrasy” or rupture of normal balance is the cause of disease. Hippocrates thus poses the bases of the concept of homeostasis and the consequences of his going beyond.

Scientifically speaking, it is in 1865 that Claude Bernard observes and describes the concept of Homéostasie, without however naming it like such:

All the varied vital mechanisms some that they are, have always one goal, that to maintain the unit of the living conditions in the interior medium.

There would be thus an essential property at the living beings which would be faculty to maintain the stability of the internal medium. This constancy of the interior medium is the condition “of a free and independent life” vis-a-vis an environment always changing, thus underlining the paramount function of homeostasis. Homeostasis allows for example to a certain extent a homéotherme to be independent of the external temperature, thing that a Poïkilotherme cannot be allowed since it does not have the Thermogenèse and of the thermolytic process to control its internal temperature. For this example, one understands that homeostasis is obtained not by a static balance, but rather mobile having techniques of regulation being able to manage excess or the insufficiency.

But homeostasis does not stop by far only with the thermodynamic processes, but to take again Claude Bernard, with “all the vital mechanisms” (op.cit.). There thus exists also a homeostasis chemical, food, etc One can thus quote inter alia the paramount role of the hypophyseal system on which the stress inter alia depends, or more generally of the hormonal system and its multiple functions in the maintenance of a “total” homeostasis. As of 1878, Claude Bernard watch that when the stability of the interior medium is disturbed, there is a vulnerability with the Maladie. Claude Bernard is thus located in the hippocratic vision of the disease, as what the morbid germ is not the only factor, but that a disturbance of the normal balance led to an embrittlement.

It is Walter Bradford Canon (1871-1945), American physiologist, who creates the name of homeostasis starting from the Greek (stasis: state, position and homoios: equal, similar to) and it will include moreover the concept of stress there. From the observation on animals of the waves of the stomach and intestine during digestion and their modifications, even disappearance in the event of fright or fear, Canon will be interested in the strong emotional reactions and their relations in the body.

Simultaneously with the modifications of digestion, Canon observes other disordered states like the acceleration of the cardiac rhythm, the increase in gastric secretion.

As of 1915, in Bodily Exchanges in Bread, Hunger, Fear and Rage , Canon states its theory of homeostasis without deviating for all that the concept explained by Claude Bernard:

the higher living beings constitute an open system presenting of many relationships to the environment. The modifications of the environment start reactions in the system or affect directly it, outcome with internal disturbances of the system. Such disturbances are normally maintained within narrow limits because automatic adjustments, inside the system, enter in action and that in this way are avoided full oscillations, the internal conditions being maintained about constant. The coordinated physiological reactions which maintain the majority of dynamic balances of the body are so complex and so particular at the living organisms which it was suggested that a particular designation is employed for these reactions: that of homeostasis.

( The Wisdom off the Body , 1932).

Canon will seek the cause of this homeostasis and it proves by a series of experiments on the animal that when the organization is subjected to a violent emotion like the fear or the fury, the production of adrenalin increases (The Wisdom off the Body) . Lastly, in Stress off and Strain Homeostasis , article published in 1935, Canon describes how the adrenal medulla, producing of adrenalin, makes it possible to face the changes of temperature, with the energy needs or with the variations of Pression partial of the oxygen in the Air.

As one can see it, Canon associates the homeostatic processes of maintenance of the life with the phenomenon of the stress, this on their basis of a production of adrenalin by the adrenal medulla.

It is then advisable to wonder, with a view to this work, the reason of the stress according to Canon. For this last, homeostasis is endangered if the essential substances miss or are in excesses (origins endogenous) or if an external factor is noxious (exogenic factors) for the organization. Canon thus conceives homeostasis as having some limiting whose transgression causes a stress, definite by Canon like an endogenous or exogenic stimulus coming from the too important imbalance of homeostasis. At Canon, the stress is thus certain manner in the pathogenic one because it is the consequence of homeostatic processes requested until the limits of their margins of functional adaptation. Thus, in the long run, the organization is weakened, vulnérabilisé (position of Bernard and Hippocrates), and will not be able to take again its homeostatic capacity of origin. To prove this fact, Canon will quote the deficiency diseases which once started make in the long run the organization weaker, this even after a cure.

At the adaptive level in the short run however, the stress will lead to the reactions of escape or fight which are the consequence of hyperfonctionnement a sympathetic nerve. The stress thus has an adaptive role essential to play because, “just like a material can resist only moderated constraints, homeostasis can be maintained only if the variations with the normal remain relatively weak. Beyond that, of the corrective processes allowing to face are necessary: it is the stress”. (Dantzer, 2002). The stress for Canon is thus the complement with the homeostasis which makes it possible to reduce to the maximum the damage already generated the organization. It is a reaction urgently short-term which supports the escape or the fight, i.e. the avoidance of the pathogenic situation. And in this direction, the stress is fundamental with the adaptation of an organization.

The General Syndrome of Adaptation; physiological reaction vis-a-vis the threat

According to Eric (1994) or Henri Laborit, the innate behavioral answers preserving the integrity of the organization vis-a-vis the threat are the escape and attacks. They are two means of avoiding the threatening situation. Accordingly, the physiological reaction of stress is completely adapted to the favorisation of such answers. Indeed, the physiological answers of stress prepare the organization with the escape, the attack or with the endurance of the threatening situation.

Hans Selye is the researcher who made popular the concept of stress physiological. It could show that when homeostatic balance is disturbed by an environmental request, the organization always reacts by a double answer. First is specific and corresponds to an answer specific to the environmental requests, while the second is nonspecific because it is identical in all situations. The latter is an innate and stereotyped answer which starts itself as soon as homeostasis is disturbed. Thus it does not matter that the stressing agent is of origin physical or psychic, internal or external, objective or subjective, pleasant or unpleasant, the answer nonspecific, physiological, humorale and endocrinienne, will be always the same one:

the fact that the agent (or situation) which we meet is pleasant or unpleasant is not of any importance; the only thing which counts it is the level of demand of readjustment or adaptation.

This nonspecific answer, Selye could observe it during its medical studies in the years 1920 (told in the stress of the life , 1975). Indeed, Selye had been struck owing to the fact that the various forms of reaction of shock observed in private clinic - the shock of the flarings, the septic shock, the hemorrhagic shock , etc - all were associated with identical clinical demonstrations, namely:

a reduction da size of the Thymus, Spleen and lymphatic ganglia,
of the gastro-intestinal ulcerations,
an increase in size of the cortex surrénalien,
a reduction in the number of the Lymphocyte S in blood, as well as the total disappearance of the eosinophilic S.

In 1936, Selye found these same symptoms at Rat S with which it had injected extracts Placenta angers and ovariens of Vache S. At that time, it concludes that these extracts must contain a harmful substance disturbing the receiver. It however will realize that the organic answer will be always same whatever the injection. Selye thus will conclude from it that there exists a nonspecific reaction, always the same one, organization to answer the environmental aggression.

Selye will devote its life to the study of this reaction nonspecific of the organization to any request which is made to him. As of 1950, it will call it the “General Syndrome of Adaptation” (SGA) or “stress”.

The SGA represents for its author the whole of the defense reactions of the organization being constant for each individual. Thus each person would have a more or less strong SGA and thus would have a capacity of different adaptation.

Three great phases are present in the SGA: there are first of all the phase of alarm with its shock and counterblow, the phase of resistance and to finish the phase of exhaustion. Note that the explanations which follow are balanced more current research which decorates the speech of Selye.

Reaction of alarm

This first phase is also called “phase of shock”. Indeed when we receive the “stressing Stimulus” (what stresses us, the event) our body is confronted with a shock. Our organization will do everything to adapt to this situation: this phase corresponds to the reaction by general phenomena nonspecific vis-a-vis the presence of an environmental request for adaptation to which the organization is not adapted yet. The reaction of alarm starts first of all with a shock, a state of surprise due to the aggression, and which deteriorates functional balance. It is a generalized and intense state of suffering which makes the organization even more vulnerable at the request of adaptation which was made to him. This phase can last of a few minutes to 12 midnight.

If the shock does not lead to the Mort, the organization can seize again itself and brings into play active means of defense. It is a reaction urgently short-term which supports the escape or the fight, i.e. the avoidance of the pathogenic situation. The answer endocrinienne and neurovégétative of this phase, called “answer sympathetic nerve or hypothalamo-sympathico-adrenergic”, can be explained rather briefly as we will try to do it.

All starts on the level of the Hypothalamus. By the means of the Nervous system sympathetic nerve, this last stimulates the Médullosurrénale which is the central part of the glands suprarenals (on the kidneys). The latter then starts the secretion of Adrénaline and Noradrénaline. For more precision, the adrenal medulla can also be activated by the nervous system at various levels other than the hypothalamus (area of the brain located in lower part of thalamus, which is the nerve center which orders the vital functions). Indeed, the bulb, marrow, the way Reflex (zone sino-carotidienne, skin) or the homeostatic mechanism humoral (by the monitoring of the rate of adrenalin circulating in blood), are also able to stimulate the adrenal medulla (Jean Rivollier, under the direction of Scanff and Bertsch, 1995).

It should be noted moreover that the hypothalamus is, inter alia, in bond with the cortex (analyzes cognitive and perceptive), the limbic Système (integration of the experiment and the emotional reactions), etc There would be thus a bond between the Cognition, the emotion, in short the perception of a situation and the reaction of stress. However, Selye was not also far in its development by refusing the importance of the perception of the individual in the reaction of stress.

As we said previously, after activation, the adrenal medulla is started and produces adrenalin and noradrenalin. These hormones increase the blood Pressure, accelerate our Cardiac rhythm and our breathing then increases the rate of sugar in blood. At this time there, our Pupille S dilates and one sees better. The memory and the reflection improve. Our digestion is slowed down.

These last first of all aim the mobilization of stocks of energy by the processes of Lipolyse (destruction of greases) and Glycogénolyse (put in circulation of glycogen of reserve, by Hydrolyze) with an aim of providing a sufficient energy to the Muscle S. Moreover, on the level of the skeletal muscles, catecholamines support the degradation of glycogen and the production of Lactate. On the level of the Heart, the Catécholamine S increase the cardiac flow, the blood pressure, the stroke volume, etc At the circulatory level , catecholamines support the oxygen contribution of the muscles to the detriment of the digestive bodies. To finish, catecholamines stimulate the release of Hormones on the level of the hypothalamus to support a rebuilding of exhausted energy. It is quite clear that the production of catecholamines has still much more effects than did not mention us. We however had to only mention most important.

In conclusion, one can say that the production of catecholamines by the adrenal medulla aims at the mobilization then the expenditure of energy in a reaction urgently short-term (reaction not exceeding a few minutes) which supports the escape or the fight while making it possible the bodies related to the movement to increase their operation. This acute increase in catecholamines can however have harmful effects at certain people: palpitations until the cardio-circulatory Stop by ventricular Fibrillation, of the angina pectoris until the Myocardial infarction. An intense stress, even short, can cause a transitory dysfonction, of very fast and important installation of the cardiac, regressive muscle in a few days or week, called Syndrome of Takotsubo.

The phase of resistance

This second phase constitutes the whole of the nonspecific reactions caused by a stressing agent which persists and to which the organization adapted during the phase of counterblow.

If the “stressing stimulus” persists, our organization starts a phase of resistance. It will try to gather resources to find a new balance. At this stage, the stress is regarded as beneficial for our organization. For example, if a child must recite a poem in front of the class, it will have a push of adrenalin. This will improve its memory and will stimulate its thought. It will be beneficial for him. On the other hand, if it grants too much importance to these consequences, it will become more nervous, it will have more tension, etc It will not be favorable for him.

The phase of alarm is very expensive for the organization and this last must compensate for the losses of energy. At the time of the phase of resistance, resistance with respect to the stressing agent is accentuated.

At the level endocrinien and neurovégétatif, this phase of resistance can be explained by the activity of the hypothalamo-hypophyso-suprarenal axis, set up as of the phase of alarm: the secretion of corticolibérine or “corticotropin releasing Factor” by the former and side cores of the hypothalamus induce a production of corticotropin (ACTH) by the former lobe of the pituitary gland (adénohypophyse).

The presence of more or less of ACTH in blood, will modulate as for it the secretion of corticosuprarenal (peripheral layer of the gland suprarenal) consistent inter alia:

of made metabolic hormones of glucocorticoïdes (cortisol, cortisone) intended to mobilize the reserves of energy in the form of carbohydrate. By the activation of enzymes, the glycemia will be increased. With strong amount, the glucocorticoïdes are anti-allergic, anti-inflammatory drug by inhibiting the immune system to decrease the reactions of the body vis-a-vis the damage of fabrics.
the mineralocorticoid ones (aldosterone and corticostérone) which intervenes in ionic homeostasis by supporting for example the conservation of sodium in blood and the ignitions.

By this explanation dependant on simplification, one thus sees well that the body is in search for a new energy, fights the possible ignitions and seeks to reinforce its lacks in particular at the ionic level. It thus aims a resistance optimized vis-a-vis the aversive situation.

The medical consequences can be notable: after the death of a member of a couple, the mortality of the survivor is very clearly increased in the few months which follow. In the same way, the turbid rate of of the ventricular rate/rhythm low registers was strongly raised in the month following the collapse of the “twin towers”.

The phase of exhaustion, diseases of the adaptation

On the other hand, if the stress continues too a long time, the organization tires itself. Anger or the depression can also appear. The stress not only will have physiological, but such psychological effects. When the person is vis-a-vis a stressing situation, its behavior as its perception of the environment are modified. But it should not be forgotten that each individual reacts in a different way vis-a-vis a similar situation. What can be truly stressing for us, can be only awkward for someone else. It is our way of seeing, to feel an event which returns it stressing more or less. There are incidents, situations which are regarded as being stressing in general by the majority of the individuals.

Therefore, if the adaptive request persists, it arrives one moment when the organization is not capable any more capacity to adapt to what is required of him; it is unable to compensate for the energy expenses, our defenses immunizing weaken while returning to us more sensitive to the external aggressions. Exhaustion will be characterized by a return to the initial phase of shock, but this time the phenomena of exhaustion override active defense and can lead until the illness or death.

Exhaustion comes owing to the fact that the organization had to function in surrégime and that by decompensation it dysfonctionne. The heart, the arteries, the stomach, the intestines or defenses immunizing can give rise to diseases such as the ulcers, hypertension even the infarction, asthma, eczema, cancer, etc the causes are not clear: even if the stress in itself can induce noxious behavioral changes (taken poisons, hyper food…), it seems that he can generate anomalies directly and it acts, in particular, of a risk factor recognized cardiovascular diseases.

The SGA thus has its limits, of the physiological limits which make that the organization cannot go beyond its forces. This obvious assertion is taken again by Holmes and Rahe (1963) which show that the quantity of unit of change has an influence on the health of the individual. Thus, for 10 people more than cash 300 units of change in one year, 8 suffered from health issues, compared to 3,3 for individuals not exceeding the threshold of the 150 units of changes. One thus conceives well with the observations of Holmes and Rahe which the capital of adaptability is not infinite as we could it think and that each cause causing a reaction of stress starts this capital.

Two prégnants examples are offered to us to illustrate this idea; very of accesses the weakening of the immune system by the SGA and then the effect of the stress on the brain. As one could see it previously, the immune system is largely affected during the release of the general syndrome of adaptation. Many experiments on the animal and the man could show this fact, and according to Baer and Al , cortisol would be the consequence. There would be thus an embrittlement of the immunizing response and thus of defense of the organization vis-a-vis foreign bodies with the organization.

According to Baer and Al , cortisol would be also the cause of modifications on the level of the brain. Indeed, the cortisol, produced by the corticosuprarenal one, would go up to the brain by blood to place itself in the cytoplasm of many neurons. Extremely of this matter, Steve Kerr and Al , (IN: Baer) could show that one of the effects of cortisol inside the neurons was that it allowed the entry of a greater number of ions calcium (CA+). In this manner cortisol could make it possible the brain to better react to the stress. However, a chronic stress (due to any request) would be also at the base of attacks against the brain, because a calcium overload inside the cell leads to the Excitotoxicité, i.e. with died of the neuron by a combined process and without end of calcium re-entry inside the cell, which creates the glutamate release, this last supporting the calcium re-entry by depolarizing the neuron

Psychological approach of the stress

introduction

With the biological approach of the stress, we saw that when the organization must adapt to an environmental request, the body has nonspecific physiological adjustments answering this request. One remembers that for the biological approach of the stress, it is essential little that the stressing agent is of physical or psychic origin, internal or external, objective or subjective, pleasant or unpleasant, since the nonspecific answer is always the same one and that the only thing which counts it is the level of demand of readjustment or adaptation.

As many researchers could notice it, the organizations do not react in the same way when they are confronted with the same events. For example, certain individuals will fall sick, whereas others not (Holmes and Rahe, 1963). There would be thus individual variables returning in account when one speaks about stress. The biological approach could explain these individual differences by the means of a capacity of different adaptation at each individual. However, other experiments like that of Friedman and Rosenman with their pattern behavioral of type has (1959) showed that these individual differences cannot be only explained by one capacity of different adaptability, but also in the fact why by a different act of thought, certain individuals manage to modulate their stress. In this manner the physiological stress is decreased.

Other experiments, like the effects of the noise on the execution of certain tasks, show also the importance of contextual variables. Indeed, a noise level usually considered as stressing and perturbing can help to maintain a performance level when the subjects are tired as could show it inter alia Broadbent (1971). The biological approach is unable to include such a discovery since for it the context is not important. The results prove in spite of very that it is it.

Moreover, as Scott and Howard in 1970 could show it, “ Certains stimulus, under the terms of their particular significance for certain individuals, is likely to cause problems only with part of the people; whereas other stimuli, of share their significance more largely shared, cause problems with a greater number of people ”. There would be thus also sociocultural variables when one speaks about stress.

The relation of cause and effect stressor => stress is thus called into question small-with-small and one realizes that it is necessary to add something to the explanation, i.e. perception, with the phenomenologic direction, that with the individual of the request which to him is posed. The researchers on the stress then also will consider this individual perception of the stress while seeking with better including/understanding its construction, its operating process, its roots, its effects on the organization, etc

Stress and " burnout"

To approach a enigma (puzzle), to move away for better perceiving by avoiding the forest masked by the tree, connecting for better including/understanding and locating for better acting. The " burnout" is a physical overwork, professional or different exhaustion, whose psychic repercussions express a disorder " somato-psychique" , whereas the stress is an anguish of maladjustment or other whose physical repercussions express a disorder endocrinien " psycho-somatique". The first, of physics, arrives at psychic and the second takes its psychic origin to lead to the physique.

The phenomenon " somato-psychique" is less popular than the phenomenon " psycho-somatique" conveyed by the Psychoanalysis, as of its origin freudien.

Data processing, cognitive approach of the stress

Lazarus (1984) is one of the leaders of the psychological explanation, it is the first to show that the stress cannot be under consideration by a simple cause and effect link of the type “stressor => stress” but that there is a dynamic and individual perceptive phenomenon which is more important than the agent causing the stress itself. Selye besides included/understood well the lacks of its theory on this level while saying at the end of its life: “the stress, that does not exist, it is an abstraction”. By this sentence, it tends to stress that the stressing agent is not that objectified in nature, but rather that which is perceived by the individual. The individual is thus not passive, it actively will seek information by giving direction to what surrounds it, by privileging certain information coming from the environment, while forgetting some of others. Thus after years of studies of the stress starting from an only biological pole, the psychological explanation makes surface to improve the lacks of the preceding one.

The data processing consists of several variables, as one could see it previously: individuality, context or sociocultural approach of such or such event.

To make short, one can say that the stress here is “ a psychological state resulting from the perception of an imbalance between perceived waitings and the autoevaluation of its own capacities to meet the requirements of the tasks ”. This definition of Jacques Larue (under the direction of Scanff and Bertsch, 1995) watch which the stress is felt by the individual when this last does not feel with the height of the requests that it perceives. This definition does not introduce however all the quantitative dimension of the stress, dimension modulated on the level of a very complex data processing of which we will try to include/understand the bases as well as possible of them.

When an individual is subjected to an environmental request, this last proceeds, often in an unconscious way, with a cognitive evaluation (cognitive appraisal). Lazarus and Folkman (1984) distinguish two kinds of evaluation. There are accesses the evaluation of the situation even. This first evaluation (primary appraisal) is made starting from called personal characteristics resources like starting from the perception of certain environmental factors. This evaluation is a first outline of the situation such as it is perceived by the individual. In the second place, a second evaluation (secondary appraisal) is made by the individual, it consists in of the estimate of its own capacities facing the request. This estimate is made on the basis of internal simulation various “as well as possible to face” (coping) with the request. After the choice of a strategy, the individual can revalue the situation once again. The approach of Lazarus and Folkman thus includes a cyclic dynamics by integrating a feedback allowing about knowing if its strategy is effective. This concept is interesting insofar as as of the moment when the subject is believed able to control or accustom themselves with the situation which requires adaptation, then the latter loses its disturbing effect on the organization.

It is noted that the data processing in the case of a stressing situation rises from several variables. We will briefly explain them.

Private means

The private means contribute to make so that each individual reacts differently to the stress. While resting inter alia on Dorhenwend and Dorhenwend (1974. In Paulhan and Bourgeois, 1991, p.34), one can say that the private means to face a crisis situation, are multiple. Let us quote some:

psychological and biological thresholds of feeling;
the intelligence, which can support a thorough evaluation as much of the situation that of its clean capacity to answer it;
types of personality in particular foreseen in the observations of Matthews and Al (1982. In Spencer, 2000) like Holmes and Will (1985. In Spencer, 2000). These authors show that there exist several types of behavior having basically different goals of existence. Thus a behavior of the type have would be characterized by an emergency feeling, of competitiveness and of hostility, whereas a behavior of the type B would be rather the research of the spare time, the pleasure, the realization of oneself, etc These types of behavior would be responsible for an evaluation different from the situation and its individual capacities. The rate of stress would then be changed. Other sides of personality would have moreover also an influence on the reaction of stress, as it is the case with the extraversion or the introversion (Dennebaker and Susman, 1986. Dennebaker and O' Heron, 1984. In Spencer, 2000)), where the people not being able to speak about their problems are more victims of diseases;
the psychological-physiological state (cognitive and emotional), which interferes enormously in the evaluation as much of the situation that of its own person. Thus a depressed person will be much less capable to make a double evaluation in her favor;
the experiment passed, powerful modulator of stress which makes it possible as much to relativize to dramatize the situation present;
the beliefs, of which beliefs irrational (Albert Ellis, 1977,1985,1987. In Spencer. 2000) which is “openings to the distress”, because creating an additional stress. These beliefs are of the type: “everyone should like me”, or “I should be the best at least in a field”, etc Of other forms of belief can also modulate our stress, like the fact of believing in a God, Science, the Love, etc These beliefs help us to support the risks of the existence, they fix a strong foundation on which to rest in an environment in perpetual movement.
the place of control or “ locus off control ” is a characteristic feeling different at each one and relating to the irrational belief to or not control (ldc intern) (ldc external) its existence. It appears quite obvious that a place of internal control is a powerful regulator of stress, while an external lcd supports a reaction of stress exacerbated. Moreover, the individuals having a lcd intern with an high degree of waiting of effectiveness are even less prone to the stress than those which hardly rely on them.
the direction of humor, predisposing that which has a better resistance to the stressing situations of it.
etc

The private means are thus, as one can see it, multiples. These resources all are more or less different for each individual and it may be also that certain resources are shared more than others. However, if one drew up the psychological profile of the resources of each one, there are strong chances so that each individual is different from the different one. This difference could be an explanation of the diversity of the answers in stressing situation.

Environmental factors

Certain environmental factors are taken into account by the individual, others not. Another individual could be completely based on other situational indices to give direction so that it perceives. In fact, all depends on what is prégnant for him. What makes direction for the individual depends on his own private means.

The characteristics of the situation, the perceived social support, the sociocultural influences, the age, the sociocultural level, the profession, etc can be classes of indices useful for the individual for his evaluation of the situation.

Certain environmental factors are used as indices almost each time they are present in the situation which requires adaptation, and this by almost all the individuals. It is in particular the case of foreseeability and the habituation:

Foreseeability would make it possible to reduce the effects of the stress as tried to prove it Weiss (1972) with his experiment on rats. In this experiment the independent variable was the possibility or not of envisaging a discharge thanks to a light signal then to press on a button to stop this discharge. The variable depending was the average size of the ulcers and it was obvious that the rats most touched by stomachic lesions were those which had not been informed in advance. However, other studies (Laborit) could show that the fact of being informed of a danger and of not being able to act on him was still worse than the fact of not being able to act without being informed. Thus foreseeability is a regulator of stress in so far as the organization feels able to control the agent stressor.

The habituation, regulator of the stress, are a “term indicating the progressive reduction and the disappearance of an answer normally caused by a stimulus when this last is repeated. The term of habituation gets busy for a not learned unconditional answer, such as the reaction of orientation observed when a new stimulus appears in the perceptive field” (Richard, 2002). Thus in the example of a stress, the chronicity of this one desensitizes the organization partly, which allows an approach less stressing of the agent causing the stress.

In conclusion, one can thus say that certain environmental indices are used by everyone as soon as it is possible, while others would be according to a less widely shared consensus and depend for example on the culture, the profession, a certain belief, etc

The theory of the motivation

Rising mainly from authors such as Dewey, Toynbee, Cohen (1980. In Daillard, 2002) or Low and McGrath (1971. In Daillard 2002), this theory stipulates that the perception of a stressing situation is powerful stimulating and always leads to an additional motivation. Consequently, the performance is improved. Here, the stress is lived like a challenge that the individual has an honor to surmount. On the contrary, a lack of stress would lead to a decreased motivation.

This theory appears to us of first very simplistic access when one speaks about the bond that there is between the stress and the performance of the adaptation. Indeed, a stress causing a supplement of motivation can completely be observed at individuals having a behavior of the type has who take pleasure in the urgency. However, that is it individuals having behaviors of the type B and who are not to in no case moved intrinsically by stressing conditions to carry out a performance? It seems quite clear that is not the case.

Moreover, the bond additional stress thus motivation functions only if the individual has an high degree of waiting of effectiveness (see “data processing”) which intrinsically justifies it with performer to the maximum of its capacities.

The theory of the motivation, in spite of a doubtful validity, however points out to us that the answer of stress is not the only factor influencing the performance. Consequently, if one wants to study the bond between the stress and the adaptive performance, it is necessary for all to find the other variables influencing they also the performance. In this manner, these other variables will not constitute any more of the parasitic variables if they are taken into account.

The motivation could thus be one of the multiple factors entering in interaction with the stress and determining the performance. For reasons of scientificity, the researchers often substituted the term “effort” for that of “motivation”, this first being observable and objective by the quantity of energy spent by the organization, but depending directly on the motivation.

The theory of waiting of Vroom (1964) stipulates that the effort devoted to a task is function of three variables.

There is firstly “waiting” which is the conviction that an effort of a certain intensity will involve a certain performance. The subject can think that there is not or little relation between its effort and the performance which it obtains. Its waiting would be then low or zero.

Secondly, “the instrumentality” which is the perception of the chances to obtain the discounted reward if the task is carried out.

And to finish, the “valence” which corresponds to the importance that the subject gives to the reward obtained in the event of success.

This theory, by peeling the motivationnelles reasons which push an individual required a certain effort, also implies that the sources of inhibiting stresses the performance can be multiple in this process.

First of all with waiting: as one has just seen it, the subject can think that there is only little relationship between its effort and its performance. In this case, it has a degree of low waiting. For us, this last corresponds to a lack of waiting of effectiveness such as we defined it in the cognitive approach of the stress. However we saw that this degree of waiting of effectiveness was a powerful regulator of stress. Bandura (1985. In Spencer, 2000) could prove it by showing that when a person is in the presence of objects which frighten him, an high degree of waiting of effectiveness is accompanied by a low level of adrenalin and noradrenalin in blood. Bandura is not the only researcher to have been able to show this irrefutable fact, other researchers, interesting in particular with the sporting events, could show it too.

The “degree of waiting of effectiveness” or “waiting” is thus a variable which modulates all at the same time the stress and the motivation. Thus, since a performance is amongst other things function of these two variables, the degree of waiting of effectiveness is doubly beneficial.

For the instrumentality the difficulty of uncertainty arises, i.e. when the subject is not in measurement of knowing its chances of success at the time of a as well as possible achieved spot. There too, this factor is constitutive at the same time of the motivation as well as reaction of stress. Indeed, if uncertainty causes the demotivation, it is also at the base of an exacerbated reaction of stress. That can be explained simply: we saw previously that a place of internal control was able to strongly modify the stress. Indeed, the individuals thinking that all on ground is founded on the principle méritocratique- with each sorrow, his merit and its reward are less capable to test stress than people including/understanding than the principle meritocratic is not entirely true and than it resides a great part of uncertainty in the success of our actions.

Uncertainty, interview in an external place of control, is thus a factor constitutive of the stress and motivation, just like the degree of waiting of effectiveness.

To finish, the valence, i.e. the importance attached to the reward, can it also lead has an additional stress. Indeed, that to say of an individual who strongly wishes a result (high valence) while not thinking of having the essential resources of the success of this result? This type of individual will be clearly subjected to a strong amount of stress.

It is thus seen that the variables constitutive of the motivation are also all present in the explanation of the reaction of stress. Moreover, according to the theory of the motivation of Vroom and the definition of the stress which we gave before, stresses and motivation are strongly correlated: the demotivation is synonymous with stress dysfonctionnel and led to a degraded performance, while the motivation is synonymous with stress functional and led to an improved performance.

The theory of waiting of Vroom is thus completely in agreement with the theory of the motivation. However, the pole motivationnel of the stress, although present, is not only, and this last is more than rising it automatic and single from the motivation. Extremely from this matter, we will continue on a completely different theory which thinks that the stress is counterproductive.

Strategies of coping and strategies of adjustment

The word “coping” comes from the English verb “to cope with” of which it is necessary to retain the significance “to face”. According to Lazarus (1984), the capacities “to face” or “coping” correspond to the whole of the thoughts and of the acts developed by the subject to solve the problems with which he is confronted and thus to reduce the stress that they generate, the coping thus aims the minimization of the bond stress-distress. The coping is always present when the individual perceived a request for adaptation and includes/understands many processes as much conscious than unconscious.

At the unconscious level, we can quote the mechanisms of defense observed by Freud like the refusal, displacement, object aggressiveness, intellectualization, etc

The conscious processes of coping are subjected to the laws of the training, one calls then them the strategies of adjustment to the problem. These strategies consist of three big classes: strategies of adjustment centered on the problem, centered on the emotions and to finish on the hygiene of life (Spencer, 2000).

The strategies of adaptation centered on the problem aim all the reduction or the elimination of the stress by a cognitive and behavioral act while acting directly on the source of stress. The attack, the avoidance, the techniques all of solution to problem are of the strategies centered on the resolution of the problem. Times however, the problem cannot be changed and it is necessary to be accustomed some after a fashion. The strategies of adaptation centered on the emotions can then render a great service to the individual. They correspond to a cognitive and emotional strategy which makes it possible to decrease, to even eliminate the stress by perceiving the source from stress differently. Relieving in its various forms (autogenic training, Jakobson-Wolpe, sophrology, Yoga, meditation, speech, etc), humor, the expression of the emotions, the social comparison, are strategies of adaptation centered on the emotion. To finish, the strategies of adaptation centered on the hygiene of life support the prevention with the cure. In full form the individual will be more capable to support the environmental requests.

A cognitivobiologic approach of the stress and its function in the adaptation

The biological explanation did not appear not sufficient to us to explain a concept as complex as the stress. Indeed, as we saw, such an explanation does not include at any time the psychism of the organization which perceives the situation according to certain frameworks of thought; in the biological explanation of the stress the reaction of stress is directly related to a situation causing the stress, the latter holding place of referring objective with respect to the felt stress.

However, as one can évolutivement note it thereafter even with as simple processes speaking as the habituation, the reaction of stress is always function of a request perceived by the organization, and not according to the request itself objectifies. This position is in agreement with the thought cognitivist which thinks that between the real situation and the reaction of stress, there is a whole data processing, basically different at each one, and who would be able to modulate the felt stress.

Another limit of the biological explanation moreover was already mentioned, it is the concept of nonspecificity of the reaction of stress; it is an innate and stereotyped answer which starts itself as soon as homeostasis is disturbed. Thus it does not matter that the stressing agent is of physical or psychic origin, internal or external, objective or subjective, pleasant or unpleasant, the nonspecific answer will be always the same one. If one remembers we had given in doubt this nonspecificity of the reaction of stress for two primary reasons.

Firstly the bond between hypothalamus and cortex in addition to the limbic system lets predict that it is not only the quantity of required adaptation (by the means of the emotions) which is transmitted to the hypothalamus, but also the quality of this adaptation by a perception coming from the cortex.

In second place, several authors moderate work of Selye, and highlight patterns of answers to the stresses presenting of the differences. For example, Cox & Cox (1985. In Rivollier, under the direction of Scanff and Bertsch, 1995) secreting differences in response of adrenalin and noradrenalin observe to various situations of stress. They also show a sensitivity of secretion according to the characteristics of work such as the mode of remuneration and the rate of work. The conclusion of this study is that the noradrenalin activation is in relation to the physical-activity, the psychological constraints and the frustrations generated by the types of tasks, whereas the activation of adrenalin is related to the feeling of effort and stress.

On the level of the physiological explanation, the conclusions of Cox and Cox are very interesting. Indeed, noradrenalin and adrenalin, although having the same function lasting the phase of alarm, do not have the same potential of transmission of information: the action of adrenalin is an attenuated form of the noradrenergic action. This is explained by a less great noradrenergic sensitivity of the receivers alpha for adrenalin. Thus, the assumption that one can make here is that the fact that the adrenal medulla decreases the production of noradrenalin to the profit of adrenalin, could lead to a phase of alarm decreased with the advantages that can bring in certain situations.

Not specificity of the answer and “against-phenomenologic” objectivism, are thus two large criticisms which one can make with the biological explanation and especially the explanation of Hans Selye.

The position cognitivist as for it, did not have the same kind of problems. It had however sorrow to connect psychism to the strong points of the biological explanation and thus one could see definitions of the stresses excluding the physiological pole from the stress, as it is the case with the position of Jacques Larue (under the direction of Scanff and Bertsch, 1995): “a psychological state resulting from the perception of an imbalance enters perceived waitings and the autoevaluation of its own capacities to meet the requirements of the tasks”.

But the stress, it is also a physiological state as can show it to us multiple examples of the daily life. Moreover authors such as Selye could show the impact of the stress on the body with the diseases known as “of the adaptation”. So one cannot stripe the biological pole of the stress and one must integrate it into an including definition.

If one looks at the literature on the stress, there were relatively few tests undertaken to connect the two explanations precisely. We will try to give some like assumption and which gathers what one saw since the beginning of this work:

All starts with the perception of the situation made up of a cognitive and emotional treatment of information. This data processing is constantly updated.

The emotional pole of the data processing is in relation to the activation of the physiological reaction of stress as could show it Canon by observing that an emotion started the catecholamine secretion, thus causing the immediate answer of the general syndrome of adaptation. At the physiological level, the emotion could transmit like information to the hypothalamus, the quantity of adjustment (adaptation) to provide.

The cognitive pole of the data processing could transmit information to the hypothalamus on the nature of the perceived situation. This information could allow thereafter a plasticity of the answer of stress according to the situation.

Without to return ahead in the physiological details that would take too much time the principal contribution of this diagram is than it binds in a direct way the data processing, cognitive and emotional, with the physiological reaction of stress. Reaction which he regards as specific. For these two reasons, the diagram deviates from the definition of the stress to make by Selye.

One previously saw the advantages of a specific answer of stress: the fact that the adrenal medulla decreases the production of noradrenalin to the profit of adrenalin, could lead to a phase of less violent alarm. Thus the perception of certain situations could lead to a phase of less violent alarm.

Refinement of the bond between the stress and the adaptation

We tried until now to give a total definition of the stress like a psychic and physiological reaction resulting from the perception of waiting of the environment, this waiting asking for an effort of adaptation. Starting from this definition, we tried to give the direct conclusions of the implication of the reaction of stress in the adaptation. Most important of these conclusions was to say that the perception of the individual held a central place in the physiological release of a reaction of stress. While going further, we suspecté that the effects of the stress on the performance were partly the result of modifications on the level of the data processing.

Empirically speaking, we could justify this position by showing that there were psychological modulators of stresses (see higher “the data processing”), modulators which seemed to have an influence on the reaction of stress, and consequently on the performance.

Certain theories, more or less of topicality, evoking the bond between the stress and the adaptation could be mentioned here; the theories of the motivation, the interference or of the combination belong to these. These various thoughts, if they are not always validated entirely by current Research, have nevertheless the merit to begin the debate on new influenced factors and influencing the stress as well as the adaptive performance.

Stress and adaptive performance

It seems that the circularity of the concepts of stress and adaptive performance is partly the reason of a lack of precision with regard to the concept of performance of the adaptation:

This concept of performance of the adaptation is if including that we can find it in all the situations of the life and any action of the individual; sometimes to be powerful means to be fast, other times intelligent being, other times still to know to stop in time, etc From that, to discourse on the bond between stress and adaptive performance appears to be an illusory step because too much general and complex. In fact, it appears difficult to want to draw a general bond between stress and performance starting from a multitude from as different situations the ones as the others.

Hockey could show accordingly that the required performance was different according to the situation. In the same way, it could show that the bond between the stress and of the specific performances was not always the same one.

The stress does not have the same influence on the performances of vigilance, of attention speed and precision. Useless thus to say that a general bond between stress and performance is illusory.

Moreover, Hockey returns to us attentive with his experiment which the source of the stress also influences the performance. Thus a stressing situation of noise will not have the same effect on vigilance as an excess of work.

Hockey thus shows us that there exist various specific stresses, just as specific performances and than it is unrealistic to seek to find a bond general between stress and performance.

In the optics of Hockey, we should thus have specified a precise situation with the definition of the performances requested specific. In the same way, the kind of stress to which the individual was subjected should have been specified. From there, we would have been able to determine the exact relation of a specific situation of stress on certain specific performances themselves.

But the specificity of the concepts of stress and performance is not the only reason which prevents from finding a relation between them two; on the level of Research there exist also several problems which prevent the discovery of stable bonds between stress and adaptive performance.

The experimentation cannot for example check the quantity of stress felt by the individual since it influences only the experimental situation itself. Indeed, according to the approach cognitivist, all the perceptive dimension of each one cannot be controlled in experiments. Moreover this perception will be different for each one with the result that with equal experimental situation, people will not be stressed same manner.

Moreover, the experimental condition, by ethical measurement, cannot be normally allowed to push the individual in his more deep cuttings off and to create at his place a stress. Indeed, to create suffering in somebody is morally not acceptable. Useless thus to say that the study of the stress must walk cautiously and cannot do anything.

To finish, stress being a concept very with the mode since Selye, each individual with a special design of what is the stress and its relationship to the performance. One saw indeed at the beginning of this work which the individuals thought for the majority that the stress was a disturbing element in the improvement of their performance. From there, implicit theories can appear and skew the student results of experiments the stress and the adaptive performance.

Thus, the relation between the stress and adaptive performance are difficult to study by the simple fact that the concepts are too general, that they are éthiquement complicated to study, that they are taken into account in theories implicit and more generally perceived differently by each one. From there, it seems illusory to build a theory of the stress and adaptation. However, the way of Hockey could constitute a possible way by splitting the concepts. Indeed, it would allow an approach much finer various stresses and performances. Moreover, it would avoid the implicit pitfalls of theories best.

The theory of the interference

This thought stipulates that the stress is against-powerful by the fact that he asks time and energy to fight against the stress by the means of the strategies of coping. In this manner, this same energy and times are not used to solve the request perceived by the organization (Daillard, 2002).

If this theory of the interference appears of first access doubtful, it introduces the concept of energy all the same. This energy, limited, cannot be to in no case used everywhere and at the same time. The choice of the organization to set up a strategy of coping goes from this fact of supporting the against-performance.

This concept of energy, although presents in another form, is a concept which is already present in the biological approach of the stress. Indeed if one remembers, the body during the phase of resistance were much more enduring vis-a-vis the aversif stimulus, while being much more vulnerable to a new phase of alarm. We will see later with the model of Sanders (1983) that energy available or missing could have an effect on the adaptive performance.

The combinatorial analysis

The central brick of this theory is consisted of the law of Yerkes and Dodson (1908). These two researchers were the first to describe the quadratic relation between the level of activation and the performance in a task of training.

The study of Yerkes and Dodson related to mice subjected to electric shocks of variable intensity on each visual discriminative error. The results showed less a good performance of retention for electric shocks of low or strong intensity, the best performances of the mice being obtained by shocks of average intensity.

This relation called in “U reversed” which predicts that the best performance will be reached by an average level of activation, was more or less well commented on by many research which tried to explain this against-intuitive phenomenon. Thus certain researchers explained the relation out of U reversed by a change of cognitive strategies (Tyler and Tucker, 1982 In Jean Rivollier. Under the direction of Scanff and Bertsch, 1995) by the contracting of the field attentionnel (Easterbrook, 1959. In Jean Rivollier. Under the direction of Scanff and Bertsch, 1995), etc

One of the best explanations provided to explain the law of Yerkes and Dodson was given with the theory of the awakening of Scott (1966. In Daillard 2002). This theory thinks that the level of awakening of the brain determines the degree of attention vis-a-vis a stimulus. Thus the awakening would play a very important part in the data processing and consequently in the performance. Same manner as the law of Yerkes and Dodson which evolves/moves in a quadratic way, the theory of the awakening thinks that only an average awakening allows an increased performance. On the other hand, a weak or strong awakening would lead to a reduced performance.

This theory of the awakening can appear rather abstract and against intuitive. It is based however on solid studies such as that of Wilkinson (1963) who could observe a quadratic relation between the interaction of the noise and the lack of sleep, and the effectiveness-precision of reaction time.

The results of this research are astonishing: the noise, element often considered as stressing can be beneficial than perturbing as much according to the tiredness of the subject. To differently say it, a subject in form and in the presence of noise is less powerful than if it were in a quiet environment. On the other hand a subject tired and in condition of environmental noise will be much more powerful than if it were in a quiet environment! This experiment marvelously corroborates the theory of the awakening of Wilkinson.

One often saw the law of Yerkes and Dodson to spread with the stress and the performance. But just like the motivation, one cannot say that only the awakening is constitutive of the stress and the performance of the adaptation.

The énergético-cognitive model of the stress and the performance of Sanders (1983)

The énergético-cognitive model of the stress and the performance of Sanders (1983. In Davranche. 2003) present the stages and mechanisms of the data processing and have this advantage which it takes into account the effect of the effort (due to the motivation, c.f. the theory of the motivation) and of awakening (c.f. Wilkinson). Moreover, the concept of energy (c.f. the theory of the interference) is taken again.

The model of Sanders (1983) is the result of a conglomerate of two approaches of the data processing. The first is the computational approach which thinks that the performance depends on the quality of the data processing, treatment carried out by a succession of operative stages of the transformations of representation (Sternberg, 1969. In Davranche). Accordingly, Sanders creates the “discrete serial model” (1980), model which will be at the base of that of 1983.

The discrete serial model thinks that the data processing consists of 4 stages:

Starting from a starting stimulus, the brain carries out a pretreatment of information. At this stage, it is the intensity of the perceived stimulus which is released;
the second phase of the data processing corresponds to the extraction of the characteristics (qualities) of the signal;
a third phase which will consist in the choice of the answer according to the stimulus;
the last phase is a driving adjustment vis-a-vis a temporal uncertainty.

The second approach adopted by the model of Sanders (1983) is the energy approach which thinks that the performance must be explained in term of quantity of resources allocated with a task.

This Sanders level takes again the three energy mechanisms of Mcguiness and Pribram (1980. In Davranche, 2003):

a) the awakening (basic mechanism underlain by the systems noradrenergic (locus coeruleus) and serotoninergic (Cores of Raphé)) is the energy mechanism allowing to extract the characteristics from the stimulus (quality). The awakening is more or less activated according to the intensity of the stimulus extracted starting from the pretreatment information. This pretreatment is activated itself by the stimulus. The function of the awakening on the extraction of the characteristics can be useful when the perceived stimulus is degraded or hides in a sensory hubbub. Indeed, according to the energy thought, it increases the capacities of the extraction.
b) activation (basic mechanism underlain by the dopaminergique systems (Locus Niger leave compacted) and cholinergic (Core of Meynert)) get energy necessary to the execution of the answer (by skews of the muscles) and of its preparation. So one can say that activation determines the performance directly.
c) the effort (higher mechanism underlain by the system peptidergic (ACTH, Opioïdes)) who coordinates the awakening and activation so that the quality of the answer corresponds to the desired initial intention. It can also help with the choice of an answer if this choice is done starting from several alternatives. As one saw previously, the effort is underlain by the motivation of the individual.

So that the explanation is complete, a mechanism of evaluation is important to consider operation suitable of the awakening and activation. The useful information with the appraiser comes from two feedback.

The first feedback informs the appraiser about the physiological state of the system. It comes directly from the awakening and of activation and it makes it possible to start an immediate action of the effort in the event of imbalance between these two mechanisms.

The second feedback informs the appraiser about the cognitive or behavioral performance carried out. This feedback is compared with the performance and the state, obtained by the latter, wanted by the individual. It again appears probable that the ideal performance and the ideal state wanted by the individual are changing and depend on new information on the stimulus, wanted goals, etc

When the feedback of the performance obtained is not considered to be sufficient by the appraiser, this last activates a little more the effort. This one as for him, activates a little more the awakening and activation since they do not make it possible to ensure a sufficient performance.

We saw until there the data processing of Sanders without seeing there appearing the stress. We come there now. For the author of this model, the stress corresponds to a subjective feeling unpleasant to the level of the appraiser when an energy imbalance cannot be compensated by the effort. Starting from such a definition, we can arise five main causes of stress:

there is a deficit in awakening which cannot be compensated by an effort (ex: the subject of deprivation of sleep having to lead on the highway of night);
there is a deficit in activation which cannot be compensated by an effort (ex: the Parkinson's disease with an early degeneration of the dopaminergique neurons and deceleration of the driving functions);
there is a surstimulation of the mechanism of the awakening which cannot be stopped by an effort (ex: the start due to a sound simulation);
there is a surstimulation of the activation which cannot be stopped by an effort (ex: schizophrenia suffering from a hyperactivity of the dopaminergique systems);
the effort invested in a task cannot solve the problem arising (ex: too complex problem compared to the motivation that one lends to it).

As one can note it, Sanders has a very broad vision of what is the stress. We can moreover note that the effect of the law of Yerkes and Dodson is made feel, since the stress is as much in the surstimulation as under stimulation.

One as understands in this definition of Sanders as a powerful effort, coming from a strong motivation of the individual, constitutes a protective barrier with many situations of stress. A powerful effort allows a better performance, from where a better adaptation to the problem. To note to finish in this model that in fact really the stress causes an effect on the performance, but how it is rather the latter in a report/ratio “performance perceived/perceived request” which, because it cannot be improved all while not being sufficient for the individual (perceived request), makes feel a stress on the level of the appraiser! This conclusion poses the complicated problem of the circularity of the relation stress-performance.

Called into question of the linearity of the relation between the stress and the performance

The approach cognitivist vis-a-vis the biological approach also posed this problem of the circularity of the concepts of stress and adaptive performance. Indeed, one remembers that the cognitivist definition of the stress was a psychological state resulting from the perception of an imbalance between perceived waitings and the autoevaluation of its own capacities to meet the requirements of the task. It appears now very clear to us that this definition includes the fact that the performance ratio/request influences the stress.

In the model cognitivist of the data processing the performance taken into account by the individual is at two levels:

firstly, on the level of a feedback towards the data processing directly after an adaptive behavior. This feedback would express with the appraiser the nature and the quantity of the answer required still. Here, one approaches the model of Sanders where the stress would be due to a negative report/ratio “performance perceived/perceived Demande”.
secondly, and it is there the genius of the approach cognitivist, the stress could also be influenced by a negative relationship between the expected performance and asks it perceived, where the expected performance would correspond to a future performance evaluation obtained with strategies of coping selected in the present!

To summarize, the stress would come owing to the fact that one does not feel with the height of what one thinks of having to make to be adapted. Moreover, the fact that the human being can be represented in time as from the present could make so that it feels a stress due to an event which did not arrive yet (it is the stress seen with the second) or of an event which already arrived as in the post-traumatic stress.

On another side, the stress exploits all the same a part the performance of the adaptation, proof in is all the biological studies of the stress. Selye could show for example that the reaction of stress put the organization in a state such as it supported the fight and the escape which are manners of avoiding a situation to which one cannot adapt. However, to avoid the situation to which one cannot adapt and succeed in doing it, means all the same to be adapted to its environment.

Selye could moreover show that when the organization could not avoid the request for adaptation which was made to him, then this last increased its resistance to this request, which still shows the bond of the stress with the adaptive performance.

In conclusion, it seems impossible to remove the circularity of concepts such as the stress and the adaptation without injuring one of the theories of the stress. Moreover, is this really useful to remove this circularity and can us do it?

Stress with work

The stress is very often present within the framework of the professional life. Sometimes, the companies require many of their frameworks. This will cause a situation of stress, of pressure. Many people complain to be stressed with work. It has a great number of reasons to stress with work: impossible customers, an owner too require, of the dreadful colleagues, the commérages at the office, the too short times, etc

There are people who like the push of adrenalin to work. That stimulates them, gives again energy to them to be confronted with the stress; they feel revitalized. Nevertheless, it is not the case of everyone. Some feel rather cut down and this east can be due to the stress within the framework of work. Here are some signs which make a statement on the situation of the latter:

Irritability, tiredness, difficulty of concentrating, loss of the direction of humor.
They more often fall sick, attach less importance to their work.
They are implied in more arguments than usually.
They manage to make less things, test little interest for their life apart from work.
They have evil to rise early the days of week.

limits of the concept of stress

The state of stress results in a succession of successive fears. But the Peur can cause only evils of acute stress, psychological (syndrome of post-traumatic stress) or somatic with a restricted range of expression: they are primarily cardiovascular diseases related to the spasm vasoconstrictor (angor spastic, Infarctus, ictus cerebral, hypertensive push) and gastric lesions (ulcer of stress of origin sympathetic nerve). In 2005, a study showing more than 2000 medical articles recognizes the importance of the chronic stress in the genesis of multiple affections.

The Peur generates the emotive reaction of the amygdala, rather summary, which would be limited to the options of escape or combat. the inhibition of the action can be the factor starting of prolonged disorders neuro-psycho-immulogic leading to multiple pathologies, which for the moment do not have any specificity.

But is the dogma escape/combat as solution with confrontation in the event of fear right? The trilogy anglosaxone fright/fligt/fight which one could transcribe in French by fright/escape/confrontation would be the single biological reaction of the animal in situation of stress or in front of a threatening stimulus. Henri Laborit was before a whole genius of laboratory. Its experimentation is carried out with rats of breeding locked up in cages, which is far from the condition of the wild animal in nature. So for health/survival of an animal out of cage (or of a man!) it is allowed to speak in praise of the escape (physical or spiritual), any observer of the free wild animal life knows that the natural scenario is very different. The usual reaction of a great number of animal species is the immobilization or the imitation dissimulator, often supported by the fear which fades the teguments. Faintness vagal human, still so frequent at our time, started by the sight of blood or an acute feeling of pain, seems a reflex sympathetic nerve vestigial of the protection which offered this immobility and this paleness at the time of the attack of the bears, frequent companions of the cave man!

If the disease is programmed, it has a goal! The first is the short-term survival of the individual whom it is necessary to save of a nearest death, towards which involves a too high intensity of stress generated by a strong emotion, the hemorrhage of a gastric ulcer or its perforation (with peritonitis death resulted in one century ago). The life instinct of the primitive brain precedes and the evolution selected the diseases like a program making it possible to escape a sudden death by violent stress. Thus the disease would not result from the reaction called stress except quoted exceptions, but on the contrary would be an internal programme of vital safeguard of the individual! This thesis is defended by experts in margin of the official medicine, whose theories are sometimes hazardous, but which have the merit to open new ways of reflection, such those of Dr. Claude Sabbah at the time of his conferences of “total Biology”. The fuse which shorts-circuit the reaction of stress mortal is the hippocampus, which allows at the man a discharge of energy specific to code emotion.

The diseases are quite related to stressing agents, but they are the specific adapted solution of the hippopocampe Droit to avoid death by a too important intensity of stress.

Even at the time of less dramatic situations, where the stress does not carry this mortal spectrum, the disease can become a selective advantage. Like writes it Jacques Salome, “the disease in its multiple functions can play a double part in the dynamic ones of relational terrorism. It can be a weapon and a strategic defense. It will be as a defensive means against the relational terrorism of the other by the possibility as it gives to refuse without having to confront itself. “You know well that with my painful back, I cannot travel any more, how do you want that I accompany you in your mother? ”. Terrorism on oneself against terrorism of the other, the diseases have also this function to propose a less evil in a too asymmetrical relation… The nerve of terrorism will be the fear. Its power is related on the meeting and the combination of two fears, mine and that of the other. ” Let us widen this terrorism with more underhand fear, become unconscious and we will have demolishes the node of the evils. The stress translates the effort of adaptation of the organization to the variations of the environment, it is a physiological stimulus until a certain threshold, variable according to faculties of the subject to modify its behavior, variable according to the experiment of each individual. Beyond, it translates a pathological loss of adaptability that Selye names distress in opposition to eustress.

drawn from the Book of the editions of the Dolphin June 2006 To hear the words which say the evils Auteur Christian Dufour

Statistics

Here now some statistics drawn from the book “to manage its stress” for the null ones of Allen Enking:

There exists, in the United States, an institute and trades of safety and health, the NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health). This one carried out the classification below. It looked in the files of the hospitals and defined which people (pertaining to precise professions) had the most symptom related to the stress.

The governmental list of the 10 jobs more stressing :

1. Workmen

2. Secretaries

3. Inspectors

4. Managers

5. Operator of machines

6. Clinical technicians of laboratory

7. Head clerks

8. Foremen

9. Waiter/euse

10. Farm owners

The following list was elaborate according to the information given by two American organizations, the National Institute one Workers Compensation and American Institute off Stress.

The list of the 10 jobs more stressing institutes :

1. Teacher/trice of the urban schools

2. Police officer

3. Minors

4. Controllers of air traffic

5. Intern

6. Broker in transferable securities

7. Journalist

8. Personnel of the customer services/complaint

9. Waitresses

10. Secretaries

----

A Californian researcher scientifically examines, since years, the professional stress. He discovered two big factors in work:

- The latitude of decision: control that a worker with the feeling to have on what it does. - Psychological requirements: requirements and pressures of work.

“A job with " high tension" is a job where the requirements of the work are strong, but where the control of the worker is weak. ”

The scientific list of the jobs more stressing :

1. Waiters/euses

2. Workman on assembly line

3. Looking after assistants

4. Workmen of the industry of clothing

5. Drilling machines

6. Operators of telephone

7. Cash clerks

8. Typographers

---- These three lists are three different points of view. After having read the first list, one can be surprised as I was. I said myself that they are not trades particularly stressing. When one speaks about stressing job with somebody, he generally thinks of professions more exciting, as police officer, fireman, ambulance man, of the people who work in the purse, etc the book gives us a very simple possible explanation: perhaps there were no many police officers and people exerting these trades in this hospital. One can however notice that the majority of the stressing jobs are those where the people are constantly in a hurry, or then too demanding trades.

We note that the waiters and waitresses are those which appear on the three lists. We can thus deduce from it that they have the job more stressing. Indeed, they are all the day upright, running, to hurry. When there are many people in the restaurant, they are all the more stressed. The customers often impatientent themselves. The waiters must make all their possible to serve them quickly. More especially as there are customers who rouspètent, which is not able to decide quickly, which wants to be been useful more quickly, which is not content.

---- The list of the jobs less stressing : These professions are less demanding and are controlled.

1. Repairers

2. Researchers in natural science

3. Architects

4. Programmers

5. Repairers of electric cables or telephone

6. Engineers of civil engineering

7. Librarians

8. Technicians of health

9. Professors

There really does not exist of work which is not stressing. The people exerting these trades quoted like less stressing are surely not of the same opinion. In the same way, all the jobs give us at one moment or another of the reasons to stress.

---- The first thing to be made for better managing this stress, is of knowing from where it comes. A good thing to be made is to note the releases of our stress. Here some sources of the stress to work:

Overload or lack of work (too many or not enough things to be made).

Too or not enough of responsibilities.

Dissatisfaction of the role or the current tasks.

Bad work environment (noise, insulation, danger, etc)

Long work hours, insecurity of employment, voyages excessive, absence of pause.

Hope of promotion limited, poor wages.

Problems with the customers, because of the owner, with the colleagues or the personnel directed by the person.

Discrimination because of the sex, the origin or the religion.

a testing way, political intrigues.

In the second place, it is necessary to wonder how one can eliminate these releases or at least to limit them. One cannot always eliminate the causes from our stress; in this case, it is necessary to do a work on ourself.

Quotations

“ the stress is the state of the organization whose wellbeing is threatened and who does not have answers immediate to reduce this threat ”, in The stress off life' (stress of the life) , Hans Selye, McGraw-Hill, 1977.

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