Questões de Inglês

WHAT IS STRESS?

Hans Selye defined stress as the body’s nonspecific response to any demand, whether it is caused by or
results in pleasant or unpleasant stimuli. It is essential to differentiate between the unpleasant or harmful
variety of stress termed distress, which often connotes disease, and eustress, which often connotes
euphoria. During both eustress and distress, the body undergoes virtually the same non-specific responses
[5] to the various positive or negative stimuli acting upon it. However, eustress causes much less damage
than distress. This demonstrates conclusively that it is how an individual accepts stress that determines
ultimately whether the person can adapt successfully to change. Selye hypothesized a General Adaptation
or Stress Syndrome; this General Stress Syndrome affects the whole body. Stress always manifests itself by
a syndrome, a sum of changes, not by simply one change.

[10] There are three components to the General Stress Syndrome. The first stage, which is termed the alarm
stage, represents a mobilization of the body’s defensive forces. In other words, the body is preparing for
the “fight or flight” syndrome. This involves a number of hormones and chemical excreted at high levels,
as well as an increase in heart rate, blood pressure, perspiration, respiration rate, etc. In the second phase
— the stage of resistance — the body becomes adaptive to the challenge and even begins to resist it.
[15] The length of this stage of resistance is dependent upon the body’s innate and stored adaptation energy
reserves and upon the intensity of the stressor. Just as any machine wears out even if it has been properly
maintained, so do living organisms that sooner or later become the victim of this constant wear and tear.
The acquired adaptation is lost if the individual is subject to still greater exposure to the stressor. The
organism enters into the third and final stage —the exhaustion stage — and then dies because it has used
[20] up its resources of adaptation energy. Thankfully, few people ever experience this last stage!

Stress diseases are maladies caused principally by errors in the body’s general adaptation process. They
will not occur when all the body’s regulatory processes are properly checked and balanced. They will not
develop when adaptation is facilitated by improved perception and interpretation. The biggest problems
with derailing the General Stress Syndrome and causing disease is an absolute excess, deficiency,
[25] or disequilibrium in the amount of adaptive hormones — for example, corticoid, ACTH, and growth
hormones produced during stress. Unfortunately, if stress is induced chronically, our defense response
lowers its resistance since fewer antibodies are produced and an inflammatory response dwindles.

Stress is a natural physical and mental reaction to life experiences. Everyone expresses stress from time
to time. Anything from everyday responsibilities like work and family to serious life events such as a
[30] new diagnosis, war, or the death of a loved one can trigger stress. For immediate, short-term situations,
stress can be beneficial to your health. It can help you cope with potentially serious situations. Your body
responds to stress by releasing hormones that increase your heart and breathing rates and ready your
muscles to respond.

Yet if your stress response doesn’t stop firing, and these stress levels stay elevated far longer than is
[35] necessary for survival, it can take a toll on your health. 

Excerpt from the text What is Stress?. The American Institute of Stress stress.org, 17/03/2019.

WHY THE REFUSAL TO VACCINATE YOUR CHILDREN IS DANGEROUS FOR YOUR ENTIRE COMMUNITY

January 30, 2018 […]

Let’s get a few things out of the way before we begin, so we have a better chance of understanding one
another: I’m a pediatrician who works in a hospital. It’s true that sick kids pay my bills, but I would much
rather that kids never got sick, even if it meant losing my job. (I’m adaptable. I’m sure I’d be OK.)

I’m also a person who thinks that when young people become seriously ill from diseases that might have
[5] otherwise been prevented, it’s a tragedy. Pertussis outbreaks in this country are on the rise; paralytic
polio quickly returned to Syria after immunization rates dropped due to the war; the measles outbreak
currently taking young lives in Europe may now do the same in Texas. When children die of these diseases,
it’s unconscionable.

I am, as you might have guessed, pro-vaccine. I am amazingly grateful that my own children are growing
[10] up in an era in which it is highly unlikely that I will have to watch them die. One hundred years ago, it was
ordinary to lose a child before they reached the age of five. Can you imagine? I don’t even want to. That’s
me, in a nutshell. What about you?

Statistically speaking, I know that you are smart and educated people. You love your children as much
as I love mine. You want what’s best for them. You are not and do not want to be confused with the
[15] unhinged anti-vax bloggers who believe vaccines are part of a government conspiracy to intentionally
injure children. […] You’re normal and rational enough to know that while there is formaldehyde in some
vaccines, it’s also present in pears, which your children have probably enjoyed in both puréed and solid
forms. And you are not, no matter what I say, going to vaccinate your son or daughter just because I think
you should. […]

[20] You understand that these are real and lethal illnesses. Roald Dahl was not lying when he described how
his daughter Olivia, seemingly on the mend from measles, suddenly had trouble moving her hands and
told him she felt “all sleepy.” Hours later, she was dead.

Medicine has progressed in leaps and bounds since Olivia died in 1962, but even so, treatment for measles
remains supportive — there are no medicines that can cure the virus itself, and the more severe cases will
[25] still result in death. […]

Do what you believe is best for your family, but if that means not vaccinating, I’m imploring you to keep it
to yourself. Otherwise, you are putting your children at increased risk. Steer clear of private schools where
immunization rates are so low that infections would spread right through the entire community like wildfire.
Don’t click on articles by anti-vax conspiracy theorists just so you can feel validated in your worldview.

[30] My children don’t enjoy getting jabbed, but they get their shots with a normal degree of grumbling. […] I
hope enough people in your community feel the same as I do and will create a protective bubble around
your own children, even if you’re not willing to do so for theirs. Appreciate that gift for what it is. Don’t
poke the bubble, or it might pop. Instead, consider saying thank you.

Sincerely,

Meghan MacLean Weir, MD

Meghan MacLean Weir is a pediatrician and the author of Between Expectations: Lessons From a Pediatric Residency and the upcoming novel The Book of Essie.

www.lennyletter.com

GLASBERGEN, Randy. Disponível em: glasbergen.com. Acesso em: 8 dez. 2018.

GLASBERGEN, Randy. Disponível em: glasbergen.com. Acesso em: 8 dez. 2018.

There Must Be More To Life Than This

There must be more to life than this
There must be more to life than this
How do we cope in a world without love
Mending all those broken hearts
[5] And tending to those crying faces

There must be more to life than living
A better way for us to survive
Why should it be just a case of black or white
There must be more to life than this

[10] Why is this world so full of hate
People dying everywhere
And we destroy what we create
People fighting for their human rights
But we just go on saying c’est la vie
[15] So this is life

There must be more to life than killing
There must be more than meets the eye
What good is life, if in the end we all must die
There must be more to life than this

[20] There must be more to life than killing
There must be more to life than this
I live in hope for a world filled with love
Then we can all just live in peace

There must be more to life, much more to life
[25] There must be more to life, more to life than this

Queen and Michael Jackson

JACKSON, Jackson. Disponível em: https://www.google.com.br/search?q=lyrics+of+there+must+be+more+to+life+than+this&rlz. Acesso em: 8 dez. 2018.

There Must Be More To Life Than This

There must be more to life than this
There must be more to life than this
How do we cope in a world without love
Mending all those broken hearts
[5] And tending to those crying faces

There must be more to life than living
A better way for us to survive
Why should it be just a case of black or white
There must be more to life than this

[10] Why is this world so full of hate
People dying everywhere
And we destroy what we create
People fighting for their human rights
But we just go on saying c’est la vie
[15] So this is life

There must be more to life than killing
There must be more than meets the eye
What good is life, if in the end we all must die
There must be more to life than this

[20] There must be more to life than killing
There must be more to life than this
I live in hope for a world filled with love
Then we can all just live in peace

There must be more to life, much more to life
[25] There must be more to life, more to life than this

Queen and Michael Jackson

JACKSON, Jackson. Disponível em: https://www.google.com.br/search?q=lyrics+of+there+must+be+more+to+life+than+this&rlz. Acesso em: 8 dez. 2018.