Measuring Stress, The First Step towards Understanding It
Journal Title: Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research (BJSTR) - Year 2019, Vol 13, Issue 5
Abstract
A strategy and methodology for the quantitative evaluation of stress is proposed in this article. The intrinsic complexity of stress is taken into account.The Stress is a major concern of the twenty-first century and will be more so in coming decades. It is a key factor in physical and mental illness, including drug abuse and suicide, and also depression, diabetes mellitus, and cardiovascular risk. Stress is dramatically increasing in prevalence owing to the need by individuals to constantly respond to ongoing aggressions and challenges facing them in modern-day society. Recently, the World Health Organization identified stress as a “worldwide epidemic of the twenty-first century,” not only because of its direct medical, social, and economic effects, but also because of its close relationship with co-morbidities, and the pushing up chronic mental and physical illness. Although stress remains a significant modern-day challenge, I am of the opinion, and it probably has an engineering bias, that two main obstacles are significantly and negatively affecting a diagnosis of stress and the ability to optimally follow it up. I am referring to the lack of a precise definition of stress, except in its most severe manifestation, and the lack of a reliable, objective, and repeatable method with which to measure its severity. Without these, it is not practically possible to ensure its effective prevention, either through early identification or subsequent management. It is also difficult to determine the efficacy of any applied therapies under these conditions. Understanding the concept of stress is intuitive to ordinary people, whereas is open to ambiguity when deliberated by specialists. There is a huge “nobody’s land” between pathological stress and “healthy” stress, that is, the amount of stress needed to be happy or the exact dose to be efficient. In addition, a quantitative assessment of stress is not feasible because of the lack of valid biomarkers, a scale, or a measurement methodology easily applicable. The absence of a reliable, noninvasive, objective, and continuous measurement method means that the references that are necessary to ensuring a sound diagnosis and effective management are also lacking. Although the relationship between certain biomarkers of stress, such as cortisol, adrenocorticotropic hormone ACTH, heart rhythm, and galvanic skin response, has been acknowledged for years, none of these are considered to constitute a gold standard reference owing to the complexity of stress etiology. Recently, other indicators, such as heart rate variability, respiratory abnormalities, neuropeptide Y, and inflammatory biomarkers (such as interleukin-6 or tumor necrosis factor-α), have also proposed as biological markers of stress. Accurate, reliable, and continuous monitoring of the “instantaneous” stress state of the subject would undoubtedly contribute to enhanced diagnosis and follow-up. Treatment could be personalized by refining the relationship between medications or other interventions and the subject’s state, which, in turn, would contribute to better knowledge of disease causes and treatment-related mechanisms.
Authors and Affiliations
Jordi Aguiló Llobet
Keywords
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- EP ID EP587583
- DOI 10.26717/BJSTR.2019.13.002458
- Views 177
- Downloads 0
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