What may be considered “stress relief”?
Anything that relieves mundane stress on a daily basis, such as relaxation, can help. However, Hans Selye, a Hungarian medical scientist, was the first to use the word “stress” in connection with a picture of health wellness. His theory is that when the body reacts to stress, it creates an “alarm” response. That means that your body is in good shape to react accordingly to any given stressor, hopefully appropriately and effectively in ways that relieve it. If the stress continues, however, an “adaptation” state may result, where we learn to accommodate or bear the symptoms of stress by adjusting to them. This can, more positively, mean creating an increase in our tolerance to frustration and moving back into the alarm state, which relieves the stress, or, negatively, reacting with an accommodating adjustment that (temporarily) alleviates the pain of the stress but becomes a new holding pattern. If the stress continues even longer, an “exhaustion” state is created that may lead to a con