Health Essay : Stress and Positive Thinking

I grew up in a very strict and traditional family, where the highest of expectations had to be met for ones talents and accomplishments to be noticed. Striving for the best while being courageous and just hoping that one-day I would be able to make my parents proud was one of the most stressful things on my mind. My father always told me that there are only two paths in life that a person can take. He said that one will be a very tough and challenging road with many obstacles but in the end we will find peace and love. The other one will be extremely easy to reach but you will only find pain and poverty. My whole life I've been struggling to be a good daughter, a better student, and a humble individual. I've always been independent and have managed many things on my own and one of my main goals was to always be stress free. Stress is a serious problem that every individual encounters in his or her lifetime. It can be anything from simple stress from school or something major as to huge stress due to a death in the family. Stress can be described as a force from the outside world that affects an individual along with the environment. It can be very hard to cope with stress since it can lead to depression or even suicide along with many other health conditions.
Another way to define stress is that it is a physical response around you that can be due to a threat or just being upset in some way. (Looker, and Gregson pg.23) When our body senses danger it goes into a response mode that is known as the fight-or-flight response. When you perceive a threat, your nervous system responds by releasing a flood of stress hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol. These hormones rouse the body for emergency action. Stress can be a positive thing or a negative thing. When a certain individual is speeding and seeing a car in front of them they have to slam on the breaks. The slamming on the breaks is due to the stress response and in these situations stress is known as a