Perception and the Stress Response

What happens in the mind and body to trigger the stress response? First, there must be an event or situation which is perceived by the mind as undesirable or threatening. The threat can come from an external source, such as warning about an overdue debt or a physical danger, or it can be a pain within the body. The threat can be real or imagined. Whether the stressor is real or not, the body’s response is always real. Sometimes people have severe stress reactions to imagined stressors. According to sociologist W. I. Thomas, “If people define situations as real, they are real in their consequences”.

A woman brought the morning mail in. Among the several items was an ”official” letter from the bank (one of those letters with a little window). Upon seeing the letter the woman became anxious and upset. Without having opened the envelope, the woman said to her husband: “Oh, Ed, we’re overdrawn. How could that have happened? I’m always very careful about recording checks. Could I have forgotten to record one? Did I make a mistake in subtracting? Did you write a check and not tell me? Somebody must have forged a check --or maybe a lot of checks! Oh what are we going to do?” The woman, now very agitated, was still holding the unopened envelope. Her husband opened the letter and found the bank was reporting a small error in bookkeeping on the bank’s part. The correspondence from a bank official was to inform them that they were being credited for $8.63.

In that situation, the stress response occurred in all its force, even though it was triggered by a quick, and wrong, perception. The interpretation, although incorrect, was real in its consequences. If you have ever been frightened by a rubber snake, which you thought was real, you have experienced the consequences of a false perception.

When a stressful event or situation occurs, the mind quickly assesses its significance and sends messages throughout the body via the central nervous system. Energy is rapidly distributed throughout the body by the bloodstream and the body’s resources are mobilized to depend itself against the perceived threat. The level of your stress in a situation depends on the intensity of meaning you attach to the source of the stress.