When I was looking for a definition of stress I thought I could do no better than turn to the father of stress, Dr Hans Selye. This Austro-Hungarian, who spent most of his life in Canada, is considered the first person to come up with the notion that strong stimuli, both physiological and psychological, can cause a physiological response. Dr Selye called this the general adaptation syndrome.

According to Selye the body passes through three stages of coping with pressure. The first stage is the familiar "fight or flight" stage when the body prepares for action; in the second stage the body adapts to the condition of excitement and builds resistance; and, in the third stage, if the duration of the stress is sufficiently long, the body enters a stage of exhaustion. This final stage has been likened to aging "due to wear and tear."

Now I think that is a great definition of stress, the wear and tear of living.

The strong stimuli that cause the general adaptation syndrome, or stress as it is now commonly known, can be internal or external and they are all around us on a daily basis. Yet stress itself is not necessarily a bad thing. Stress can provide motivational energy to avoid harm or achieve a goal.

For this reason Selye differentiates between two types of stress: there is distress, thats the harmful one, and there is eustress, the good stress.

Another definition of stress that I came across is from the Health & Safety Executive in the UK and relates specifically to the workplace: it is the adverse reaction a person has to excessive pressure or other types of demand placed upon them.

Yes I can accept that certain stimuli in the workplace can cause distress. But of course the stimuli that one person finds distressing might be exciting (or eustress) for another.

This idea that there are two kinds of stress is, I believe important, because stress is too often used as a blanket, negative word. If we recognise that we cannot, nor should we want to, eradicate stress per se then instead we can focus on the stimuli that cause distress.

By adopting Selyes simple definition of stress we can acknowledge that stress exists as an inevitable part of our daily lives. What we do with it is up to us.