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Research That Has Suggested a Link Between Stress and Ill Health

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Research that has suggested a link between stress and ill health. Looking at the link between stress and illness, there have been many studies done to show the direct effect stress has in relation to illness, the main three pathways looked at are the direct effect, stress interacting with pre-existing vulnerabilities and how stress leads to behavioural changes that are not beneficial to one’s health. However it is hard for researchers to establish a definite cause and effect relationship between stress and specific physical symptoms or illnesses. Not only do people's minds and bodies react differently to stress, but there also are other factors at work when someone falls ill. Most researchers have found the more a person suffers from stress the weaker his or hers immune system becomes. In trying to understand why stress can be bad for the body is to look at it from an evolutionary perspective, where in the past our ancestors were often confronted with life threatening situations and as a result the ‘fight or flight’ response evolved. Whilst being confronted by dangerous situations such as confrontation with a predator it was necessary to send blood to the muscles and be in a heightened state of arousal, however today it might not be relevant to most everyday stressors. So we can say most stressors do not pose a physical danger to us yet the way our nervous and endocrine systems have evolved we react to the stressors as if they did, whilst it might have been an adaptive response for our ancestors it has become maladaptive for us today.
In a study done by Cohen et al (1991) the direct effect stress can have on illness was demonstrated when 394 healthy participants were asked to complete a questionnaire assessing their stress levels, there after they were exposed to five respiratory viruses. Those that experienced the most stress were the most likely to develop

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