I was looking at my agenda earlier this week and assessing all that is going to happen in the next month and I started freaking out a little. I don’t know about you but in my case, the end of the semester is going to be intense and stressful. Not too long after this burst of anxiety, I began wondering about this construct; stress. Throughout my 2 years in psychology at McGill, I have come across studies pointing out that stress is a risk factor for many disorders like depression, for instance. And every once in a while I hear about cancer and how stress is the major cause. I hear about people trying to change their lifestyle; work less, relax more, do meditation… all in fear of getting cancer. As if not being stressed was the antidote. I’m not saying it wouldn’t help at all, or that being less stressed is not a good thing, but if I’ve learned anything from my 2 years in psychology, it’ that nothing is really the result of one cause. It’s usually a genes x environment interaction, or a combination of factors. There is rarely once cause (except maybe for Huntington’s disease).

As I reflected upon this, I also started wondering about what stress is. And how is it measured? What is moderately stressful for me can be trivial for one person and insurmountable for another. So can we really measure stress by counting the number of stressful life events? The same life event can have very different impacts on two different people. And what about perceived stress? Is that what’s really important? After all, if a person sees himself or herself as not stressed even if he or she just lost his or her job for instance, then isn’t that what really matters?

Also, are there different types of stress? Is there a difference between stress experienced at the sight of your young kid crossing the street without really looking and stress experienced by a workaholic? Surely, some stress must be healthy. After all, in the case of the young kid, stress is the normal physiological response of a mother, a survival instinct. But is it just that a certain level of stress is healthy? Or that certain types of stress are worse than others?

Morgan and colleagues examined the newly developed Perceived Stress Reactivity Scale (PSRS). More precisely, they examined the convergent and discriminant validity of its 6 subscales. Their results indicated that there might indeed be different facets of stress reactivity, that different aspects can be differentiated. The researchers point out that this information could be useful in research on mental health and the consequences of stress, by looking at its different domains of origin. I believe that this tool (the PSRS) could indeed prove to be useful in determining what it is exactly about stress that causes it to be a risk factor for so many disorders. We know that stress has an impact, but what exactly, what kind? Information on this could help with prevention; make it more targeted and therefore more efficient.