Not all stress is bad. In fact, some stress adds pleasure, excitement and energy to various activities. A healthy level of stress-system activity can promote intellectual and emotional growth and sharpen your senses for life’s challenges. But often, stress is not mild brief but sustained beyond belief! It is this type of prolonged, uncontrollable. emotional, physical or physiological stress can cause debility, disease and even death. But what exactly is stress?

Stress is a well known often used, but often ill-defined term. It has different meanings for different people. Actually, stress is a term the psychological sciences borrowed from the field of engineering and it is defined in psychology as “a state of disharmony, dis-equilibrium or threaten homeostasis”.

Perhaps a more practical definition would be “the sum total of our responses to the various forces or stress that impinging in our lives. These forces can be physical, emotional, chemical, environmental, spiritual or symbolic in nature. Simply stated, a stress is any disturbing factor that disrupts physiological, physical or mental balance.