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Alana B Mullins

Professor Dean Leonard

ENG 1201.509

26 May 2019

How does Stress Affect Different Aspects of your Health?

Almost everyone can attest to being stressed at some point in their life, whether that be

due to school, work, children or drama in general. Stress is usually associated with negative

feelings towards it, but is stress really a negative reaction from your body? All my life I have

been told that I am the most stressed person many different people know, due to many different

sources of high stress environments in my life. School is the main source for all of my stress. I

am such a perfectionist that I try to focus my life around all perfect outcomes, but this is not a

realistic expectation or standard to hold myself to. What I am concerned about is whether stress

has any sort of effect on mine and other’s health, either negative or positive. As the stress in my

life has increased, my eye sight has worsened, weight has slightly increased, headaches and

migraines have become more frequent, and long term I fear stress is nearly killing me, maybe

that is an exaggeration, but stress could potentially cause life threatening health effects for

individuals. I would like to look in depth on how stress affects different personality types of

individuals. I also would like to look into how stress will have different effects on people if they

view it with a positive attitude. I plan to look for ways to release stress for individuals to help

prevent any negative affects to arise.

I know that stress is a bigger part of my life than I wish it was. I am constantly getting

overwhelmed with setting the bar so high for myself and not wanting to give up until I reach it. I

feel like stress has many negative consequences to an individual’s health, especially if they think
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stress is unhealthy for them. If an individual perceives stress as a preparation mechanism for

their body, they could have less severe health issues in the long run. I believe that stress is

something that every person will have to bear at some point in their life. Stress is an inevitable

mechanism that when faced in life, can be harmful or helpful. I know that some people become

more stressed than others. I think this could be because of different personality types. Some

people are more up-tight during stressful situations whereas others are very laid back and deal

with stress really well. The effects of stress are all about how you deal with it.

I hope to understand the science behind stress, such as exactly what is going on within

the body when an individual feel stressed, like what hormones are being released and what

symptoms are the outcome of this. I also would like to look into how if stress is dealt with

differently if it could be considered healthy. It interests me to look into different personality

types and why some people deal with stress differently. I want to go in depth on researching

what different health issues arise from stressed individuals and how these could be prevented if a

destress was put into play for the individual to relax. I believe with this research that I plan to

conduct I will be able to better deal with stress in a healthier way and understand my stress

better. I hope this research I plan to conduct will also help other individuals that have a hard time

with stress.