DISCUSSION: After the small groups have completed their "Sress-O-Meters", facilitate a class
discussion using the following questions and write the students' ideas on the board.
Did everyone on the team agree on the ranking? If not, why?
Does the same situation, condition or events affect everyone the same? Why?"
What situations, conditions and events did you list as being "eustress" - boring?
What attitudes, actions and behaviors could prevent eustress or create interest?
What situations, conditions and events did you list as being normal "stress?"
What situations, conditions and events did you list as being "distressful?"
What attitudes, actions and behaviors could prevent or reduce distress?
EFFECTS OF DISTRESS ON THE DEVELOPING BRAIN
STRESS is normal. Stress happens when we hear, see, smell, taste, touch or are touched. Sensations
and movement are ways we display our stress - normal reactions are a sign of normal stress levels.
A perfect balance of stress is health. Stress is the brain and body's normal reaction to being
stimulated. Think of the brain as a computer. It comes into the world with the basic operating
systems, central nervous system, circulatory system, respiratory system, reflexes, etc. However,
it does not have all its software - the programs for vision, speech, emotions, memory, abstract
thinking, problem solving and attention and concentration. The brain needs input or stimulation from
the five senses to build these capacities the brain needs to be stressed. The brain's food is
stimulation and learning without them, it dies.
"EUSTRESS" is the absence of stress. It is the absence of stimulation or the uncontrolled response
to the absence of stimulation. At its ultimate the sign of eustress is death. At the level most of us
experience from time to time, a sign of eustress is being bored to death! However, because an infant
cannot self-stimulate or control the level of stimulation in his/her world, when an infant is not
visually stimulated, or talked to or touched, he/she dies not of boredom he/she physically wastes
away. Infants who are not stimulated adequately, even if they are well-fed and otherwise tended,
suffer from eustress and what is known as "failure to thrive."
"DISTRESS" is the opposite of eustress. It is the uncontrolled response to a highly stimulating
situation, condition or event. At its ultimate, the sign of distress is also death people who are
dying are said to go into respiratory distress. At the level most of us experience from time to
time, it is sweaty palms, fast-beating hearts, short, rapid breathingfear, anger and other strong
emotions can produce distress in the body like being chased by a thousand pound gorilla. Over time,
sustained distress begins to act as a psychoactive drug acts in the brain. If we think of the brain
as a computer, alcohol and other psychoactive drugs act like computer viruses; they change, delete
or scramble the code that our computer - our brain - uses to operate. Sustained distress does the
same thing; the neurotransmitters and hormones such as adrenaline are working overtime. Soon the
brain and body accept this state as normal, so that when the event, circumstance or situation that
stimulated the distress response is over, the body and brain remain in a state of distress. This
is sometimes known as post-traumatic stress syndrome.
STRESS MANAGEMENT is the ability to control one's practiced response to stimulia person's practiced
response to any given situation, condition and event. Stress management requires that we know what
causes us eustress, stress and distressand what our response ishow controlled it ishow well we
maintain balance. Effective stress management techniques include deep breathing, bio-feedback, yoga,
aerobics, sports, spiritual stimulation, recreation, working out, running, biking, friends, writing,
journaling, music, dance, art, reading, volunteering and talking to a trusted friend or counselor
and tons of laughter and safe hugs.
STRESS MISMANAGEMENT is the use of substances to control one's response to stimuli. Some people use
psychoactive substances to help manage their response to situations, conditions and events that they
find over-stimulatinglike work, family relationships, and money problems. Adults who use alcohol
and other psychoactive drugs to manage their response to stimuli run the risk of becoming addicted
to the substance they have turned to for help. The brain develops a tolerance to the substances the
way it develops a tolerance to distress, and it takes more and more of the substance to provide
relief. For children and adolescents, the use of alcohol and other psychoactive substances can be
devastating. The latest studies on the brain reveal that it does not finish developing until a
person is around twenty years old. Psychoactive drugs act like computer viruses; they change, delete
or scramble the code the computer - the brain - uses to operate. Not only do children and
adolescents develop addiction four times faster than adults, they run the risk of damaging their
cognitive, emotional, social and physical development. Adult brains, which can still be harmed by
use of psychoactive drugs, do not sustain the same level of damage because their brains have
completed development. Stress mismanagement among children and adolescents is life mismanagement.