Stress comes in many forms. Most of us understand this intuitively. For example, we know that we feel “stressed” when we have a hard day at work or when we’re carrying a heavy load.

We use the word to describe an intense emotional event, and to convey what is happening to a wooden board bent to the point of breaking.

While the concept seems natural, the actual term “stress” hasn’t been around very long. It wasn’t coined until a researcher by the name of Hans Selye came along in the 1950s.

On the other hand, the idea that people and things could be subjected to environmental irritants has been around for a long time. D.D. Palmer, the founder of chiropractic, made this observation back in the late 1800s.

Palmer divided these irritants, or forms of stress, into three categories: mechanical, chemical, and psychological–or what he called “traumatism, poison, and auto-suggestion.”

An example of mechanical stress might be wearing an uncomfortable pair of shoes all day.

Chemical stress might arise from a food allergy or a toxin from unfriendly bacteria.

Psychological stress is perhaps the most well known, and can surface from any conflict such as a fight with your spouse or a bout with an unreasonable boss.

An important thing to understand about all forms of stress is that they’re cumulative. That is, you can’t separate the different varieties of stress and somehow recover from them independently.

If you spend the weekend playing touch football (mechanical stress) and have a looming work deadline early in the week (psychological stress), and as a result of your time crunch, scarf down fast food filled with sugar and hydrogenated fats (chemical stress), then it shouldn’t be a surprise when you’re worn down and sick by Friday!

Selye actually determined this half a century ago when he would stress lab rats in various ways and then observe how their bodies responded. No matter what form of stress, the eventual breakdown always followed the same pattern.

Humans also follow this pattern, and if we don’t make an effort to relieve the various forms of stress placed upon us, we end up sick, injured, or both.

So if various forms of stress can make us sick, then what exactly is health? It’s easy to understand that we feel good until mechanical, chemical, and psychological stressors (MCP) add up and we break down.

But what about that point in between when we have a fair amount of MCP, but we’re not yet sick or injured in any noticeable way (i.e. we don’t have any symptoms)?

That space in between the level of stress we’re currently under, and the level we have where we start experiencing symptoms is called “resistance”.

These ideas are best demonstrated with the stress chart at the top of the page, devised by Dr. John Bandy of Austin, Texas.

The chart reads like a thermometer, with our total exposure to environmental stress (or MCP), reflected by the “Now” point on the chart. Again, various types of stress can contribute to our total stress. Anything from marital strife, to fatty foods, to exercise can add to our overall stress level.

The point “D” on the chart is the Disease point. This is the point at which we begin to exhibit symptoms. “R” then, is a graphical representation of resistance. If the next big stress we are subjected to exceeds our current supply of resistance (“R”), then we experience symptoms of illness or disease.

At any given point in time we have varying amounts of resistance. It varies within and between individuals based on how healthful our diet is, what our job is like, how much exercise we get, whether a loved one recently passed away, and whether we’ve just been exposed to a “bug,” just to name a few factors.

That is, it varies based on how much MCP we’re experiencing.

So health, then, is that state in which we still have some resistance, keeping the level of environmental irritants that we are experiencing from producing symptoms. We are “unhealthy” (or experiencing “disease”), when MCP exceeds our resistance.

Any stress reduces the amount of resistance you have, bringing you closer to a state of disease. These concepts are well described in Dr. W.D. Harper’s book, “Anything Can Cause Anything.” The title gets to the crux of the matter: just like any expense — be it business or pleasure — will deplete your bank account, so too will any stressor deplete your overall reserve of health.

We’ll explore these ideas more next time to understand how we survive and adapt to all the stress that is around us!