Stress is a natural human response to various situations or events that can be both positive and negative. It's the body's way of reacting to pressure or a perceived threat, often triggering a "fight-or-flight" response. While short-term stress can be helpful for motivation and alertness, prolonged or excessive stress can negatively impact physical and mental health.

2. Stress
•Stress is the most deliberating medical and social
problem of the present century.
•Selye (1956) defined stress as: “The disturbance of
the structure or functioning of tissue system as a
result of noxious stimuli, such as heat, cold, micro
organisms or physical injuries.”
•Stress may be defined as a condition where an
individual finds disequilibrium within himself and
between himself and the environment surrounding
him.

3. Types of Stress
• Anything that causes change in our life causes stress.
• It does not matter whether it is a “good” change or a “bad”
change but both are stress.
• Most of us associate stress with something negative.
However, it may be noted that not all stresses are negative.

4. Flee or Flight
• When the brain perceives the threat, a good amount of hormones
such as adrenaline, cortisol, etc. are pumped into the blood which
help to decide whether to flee or flight under such situation.
• The hormones pumped into the blood as a stress response gives
you energy to propel your muscles.
• This stress response is good (Eustress). However, if it is not
terminated in time, the after-effects could be bad (distress).

5. Symptoms of good stress
• According to Kobasa (1979) three common symptoms of good stress (Eustress)
are:
• Commitment or the tendency to involve oneself in whatever one encounters.
• Control or the sense that one causes the events that happen in ones life and
that one can influence ones environment.
• Challenge is willingness to undertake change and confront new activities that
represent opportunities for growth.

6. Symptoms of Eustress
These symptoms of Eustress results
in:
•Keeping us alert
•Motivates us to face challenges
•Drive us to solve problems.

7. Symptoms of bad stress
•The symptoms of bad stress (Distress) are:
•Smoking
•Nervous tics or twitches
•Compulsive eating

8. symptoms of Distress
•These symptoms of Distress results in:
•Addiction
•Cognitive and Somatic Ailments
•Obesity

9. Hardiness
• The term Hardiness was introduced by Kobasa.
• Hardiness is a personality trait having the components of
commitment, challenge and control and is found to be
associated with strong resistance to negative feelings induced
by adverse circumstances.
• Kobasa (1979) introduced the concept of Psychological
hardiness and suggested that hardiness moderates the
relationship between stressful life events and illness.

10. Components of Hardiness
• Kobasa described Hardiness as being comprised of mainly three
components:
• Commitment: Women high in the commitment attitude become
involved in a situation rather than withdrawing from it, they
basically turn stressful circumstances with disastrous potential
into growth opportunities.

11. Challenge
• Hardy Women consider the stressful situations as less
dangerous and more controllable (Zakin et al, 2003),
additionally, hardiness attitude enhances stress resistance in
various life situations (Kobasa, Maddi & Khan, 1982). Women
who are hardy basically enjoys challenges in their lives. They
see the change as a challenge and not as a threat.

12. Control
• Women who feel less threatened by the stressful situations
and feel more control over the environment are able to
confront challenging situations with calmness and self-
confidence (Maddi & Hightower, 1999).A hardy women faces
the unpleasant events and control them by accepting the
responsibility for both the failures and successes in their life.

13. How hardiness helps
• Stress does not make people sick but giving up their inner
adaptability to what stress does.
• The greatest threat to life and health is having nothing to live for.
When we have commitment to complete and ambitions to realize,
life becomes meaningful. Life becomes worth living.
• Individuals high in hardiness are hypothesised to be better able to
withstand the negative effects of life stressors

14. • Lifespan of an individual consist of chockfull of changes and
anything that reasons change in life is a source of stress.
• Whether the change is entering puberty, physical, mental and
emotional breakdown, getting married, domestic violence,
miscarriages, pre and post-natal period, menopause etc.
• they all lead to stress and stress leads to many cognitive and
somatic ailments.

15. • The consequences of living under continuous and/or severe stress,
equivocally prove (Lazarus, 1966) that the stress produces mental illness,
various kinds of maladaptive behaviour such as suicide, withdrawal etc.,
violent behaviour and it may result in the use of drugs by female.
• So as to cope up with the stresses associated with the changes in the life
span of females, a change in lifestyle needs to be adapted by females.
• A change of drawing upon personal strengths that have been held in
reserve, hardiness is one of those signature strengths a female can opt
for making her life more successful.

16. REFERENCES
• Kobasa, S. C. (1979). Stressful life events, personality, and health: An inquiry into
• hardiness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 1-11.
• Kobasa, S. C. (1980). Stress resistance among army officers. Unpublished
manuscript.
• University of Chicago.
• Kobasa, S. C. (1982). Commitment and coping in stress resistance among lawyers.
• Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42, 707-717.
• Kobasa, S. C , & Maddi, S. R. (1982). Hardiness measurement. Unpublished
manuscript.
• City University of New York, Graduate School and University Center.
• Kobasa, S. C , Maddi, S. R., & Kahn, S. (1982). Hardiness and health: A prospective
• study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42, 168-177.