Standing in the rain, thinking of a way to keep these feelings inside. Walk away from here before the words disappear, I will be silent. Health is not just an absence of disease. People who are truly healthy enjoy a positive state of wellness or well-being. If you are in a situation where you experience on going stress and it is impacting your health, and no one is doing anything to remediate the problem, no matter how much you love some of your coworkers, or friends, you have to move on. I do not want stomach cancer or anything like that from stressing about something I cannot control. When emotional shocks are intense or repeated, unpredictable, uncontrollable, and are linked to pressure, stress will be magnified and damage is like to result. Yes, people generally feel more stress in situations over which they have little or no control. For example, Douglas DeGood subjected college students to an unpleasant shock-avoidance task. Some students were allowed to select their own rest periods, while others rested at times selected for them. Participants allowed to control their own rest periods showed lower stress levels (as measure by blood pressure) than those given to choose.

Stress is not always bad. To be totally without stress is to be dead. As noted earlier, stress is the mental and physical condition that occurs when a person must adjust or adapt to the environment. Unpleasant events such as work pressures, martial problems, or financial woes naturally produce stress. However, so do travel, sports, a new job, mountain climbing, dating, and other beneficial activities. Even if you are not a thrill seeker, a healthy lifestyle may include a fair amount of eustress (good stress). Eustress can be energizing. Activities that provoke good stress are usually experiences as challenge and rewarding. A stress reaction begins with the same autonomic nervous system arousal that occurs during emotion. Imagine standing at the top of a wind-whipped ski jump for the very first time. Internally, there would be a rapid surge in your hate rate, blood pressure, respiration, muscle tension, and other ANS responses. Short-term stresses of this kind can be uncomfortable, but they rarely do damage. (Your landing might be another matter, however.)

Warning signs of stress that are emotional include anxiety, apathy, irritability, mental fatigue. Behavioral signs of stress are avoidance of responsibilities and relationships, extreme or self-destructive behavior, self-neglect, and poor judgment. Physical signs of stress are excessive worry about illness, frequent illness, and exhaustion, overuse of medication, and physical ailments and complaints. Other than when it is long lasting, why is stress sometimes damaging and sometimes not? Stress reactions are complex. Let us examine some of the chief factors that determine whether or not stress is harmful. When is stress a strain? It goes almost without saying that some events are more likely to cause stress than others. A stressor is a condition or event in the environment that challenges or threatens a person. Reporters, for instance, suffer from a high rate of stress-related diseases. The threat of injury or death, plus occasional confrontations with drunk or belligerent citizens, takes a toll.  A major factor here is the unpredictable nature of journalism. A reporter never knows when they go to cover a story or an active crime scene if a cooperative citizen or an armed gang member is waiting for them. In 2014, 60 journalists were killed. Some reporters are being irresponsible in getting the media caught up in a cross and others are good reporters and just get caught in bad situations.

Pressure is another element in stress, especially job stress. Pressure occurs when a person must meet urgent external demands or expectations. For example, we feel pressured when activities must be speeded up, when deadlines must be met, when extra work is added unexpectedly, or when we must work near maximum capacity for long periods. However, maintaining wellness is a life-long pursuit and, hopefully, productive work that is enjoyed. People who attain optimal wellness are both physically and psychologically healthy. They engage in good thought patterns, show emotional resilience, and they are optimistic and self-confident. People with a sense of well-being also have supportive relationships with others, do meaningful work, and live in a clean environment. Many of these aspects of wellness are present in people who are in a loving state of mind. Understanding stress, and learning to control it, can improve not only your health, but the quality of your life as well. So I do not want to be in a place where I am harassed and disrespected. In is a new year, and if you have warned people, but they are not listening to you, let them go. This does not need to be a repeat of last year. There is something wrong with those people for them to be so mean. They are in pain and want to project it on you and cause dysfunction in your life. However, as soon as you let them go, others who want to help you will come into your life.

What does it mean to feel threatened by a stressor? Certainly in daily situations it does not mean you think your life is in danger. (Unless, of course, you owe money to Lucious Lyon or Enrico the Enforcer.) Threat has more to do with the idea of the control. We are particularly prone to feel stressed when we cannot—or think we cannot control our immediate environment. In short, a perceived lack of control is just as threatening as an actual lack of control. If your answer to the question is, “What can I do about this situation? Is “nothing,” you will feel emotionally stressed. A sense of control also comes from believing you can reach desired goals. It is threatening to feel that we lack competence to cope with life’s demands. Thus, the intensity of the body’s stress reaction often depends on what we think and tell ourselves about stressors. That is why it is valuable to learn to think in ways that ward off the body’s stress response. Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire. Not a root or a branch will be left to them, says the Lord Almighty.