Psychologist says women are more capable of combating stress than the men

YEREVAN, AUGUST 12, ARMENPRESS: “Armenpress” news agency spoke with the PhD in psychology, vice dean of the YSU Faculty of Sociology Nara Sahakyan about stress and its consequences.

- Mrs Sahakyan what is a stress?

- Stress is a social fact. We cannot say that one or two centuries ago there was no stress but together with the development of civilization the happenings and phenomena causing stress have increased. The necessary conditions for a person to feel safe have become less and a person feels endangered when he is already in stress. The academic formulation about stress says that it is a response reaction of the organism toward inner and outer signals. Of course there is a daily perception according to which every person hundreds of times appears in stress-causing situations during a day and it makes him/her be anxious and find ways to accommodate to it which demands great energy.

- Which are the factors causing stress?

- They may be of different types and their core is quite wide. But the interesting thing is that the response reactions of the organism seem typical for all. It shows that the reasons of stress are different and the reactions are the same. Different happenings may cause stress – ecologic changes – cold and hot whether, social issues – unemployment, divorce or psychological issues.

- Is there differentiated gender stress perception?

- Women are more sensitive than men. The latter store their emotions inside which on its turn create mental and body problems. For getting rid of stress before applying to psychologist women choose such ways like the so-called “shopping” which really helps them a lot. Not sad music and compliments also help women. For instance one of my visitors once said that for getting out of stress she goes to barber’s and changes the hairstyle. For instance going to barber’s first of all means “I have an opportunity to do it both in financial and other respects”…Women show their emotions that is why they overcome stress better than men do.

- Is there regional stress limitation or local differentiation?

- Like there exists a national feature, there is also ability to combat the stress. In reality the ability to overcome stress increases as a result of great number of stresses” human body and psychology learns to combat stress. For instance, we, Armenians, do not have culture to relax. We do not have culture to host guests either. We are just thinking to surprise but there are countries for which hospitability is an occasion to have fun, exchange thoughts, contact with each other. We are complicating our lives by such things and it creates stresses.

- Are there stress differentiating phases?

- Stress has three phases. The first one is called the alarm phase during which person’s body starts bringing forth its resources and the stress combating ability of the organism raises. The second one is fighting phase when a person feels calmer. But in case of long lasting stresses the organism does not have relevant resources and it causes the third phase – phase of exhaustion – which is the most difficult for a person.

- What must be done for restoring after the stress?

- First of all I will mention the specialized psychological services which really are of great significance for a person. When friends or relatives are giving advices they are doing it stemming from their own experience but the own experience is very individual.