Editing Stress (biology) (section)

==History in research==
The current usage of the word ''stress'' arose out of [[Hans Selye]]'s 1930s experiments. He started to use the term to refer not just to the agent but to the state of the organism as it responded and adapted to the environment. His theories of a universal non-specific stress response attracted great interest and contention in academic [[physiology]] and he undertook extensive research programs and publication efforts.<ref name="Viner1999">{{cite journal | author = Viner R | year = 1999 | title = Putting Stress in Life: Hans Selye and the Making of Stress Theory | journal = Social Studies of Science | volume = 29 | issue = 3| pages = 391–410 | doi=10.1177/030631299029003003 | jstor=285410| s2cid = 145291588 }}</ref>

While the work attracted continued support from advocates of [[psychosomatic medicine]], many in experimental physiology concluded that his concepts were too vague and unmeasurable. During the 1950s, Selye turned away from the laboratory to promote his concept through popular books and lecture tours. He wrote for both non-academic physicians and, in an international bestseller entitled ''Stress of Life'', for the general public.

A broad [[biopsychosocial]] concept of stress and adaptation offered the promise of helping everyone achieve health and happiness by successfully responding to changing global challenges and the problems of modern [[civilization]]. Selye coined the term "[[eustress]]" for positive stress, by contrast to [[distress (medicine)|distress]]. He argued that all people have a natural urge and need to work for their own benefit, a message that found favor with industrialists and governments.<ref name="Viner1999"/> He also coined the term ''stressor'' to refer to the causative event or stimulus, as opposed to the resulting state of stress.

Selye was in contact with the [[tobacco industry]] from 1958 and they were undeclared allies in [[Lawsuit|litigation]] and the promotion of the concept of stress, clouding the link between [[Health effects of tobacco|smoking and cancer]], and portraying smoking as a "diversion", or in Selye's concept a "deviation", from environmental stress.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Petticrew|first1=Mark P.|last2=Lee|first2=Kelley|date=March 2011|title=The "Father of Stress" Meets "Big Tobacco": Hans Selye and the Tobacco Industry|journal=American Journal of Public Health|volume=101|issue=3|pages=411–418|doi=10.2105/AJPH.2009.177634|issn=0090-0036|pmc=3036703|pmid=20466961}}</ref>

From the late 1960s, academic [[psychologists]] started to adopt Selye's concept; they sought to quantify "life stress" by scoring "[[Life-Events and Difficulties Schedule|significant life events]]", and a large amount of research was undertaken to examine links between stress and disease of all kinds. By the late 1970s, stress had become the medical area of greatest concern to the general population, and more basic research was called for to better address the issue. There was also renewed laboratory research into the [[neuroendocrine]], [[molecular]], and [[immunological]] bases of stress, conceived as a useful [[heuristic]] not necessarily tied to Selye's original hypotheses. The [[US military]] became a key center of stress research, attempting to understand and reduce combat [[neurosis]] and psychiatric casualties.<ref name="Viner1999" />

The [[psychiatric]] diagnosis ''[[post-traumatic stress disorder]]'' (''PTSD'') was coined in the mid-1970s, in part through the efforts of anti-Vietnam War activists and the [[Vietnam Veterans Against the War]], and [[Chaim F. Shatan]]. The condition was added to the ''[[Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders]]'' as ''posttraumatic stress disorder'' in 1980.<ref name=IHHRT>{{cite book |author1=Shalev, Arieh Y. |author2=Yehuda, Rachel |author3=Alexander C. McFarlane |title=International handbook of human response to trauma |publisher=Kluwer Academic/Plenum Press |location=New York |year=2000|isbn=978-0-306-46095-1 }}; [http://www.istss.org/what/history2.cfm on-line] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070617045846/http://www.istss.org/what/history2.cfm |date=17 June 2007 }}.</ref> PTSD was considered a severe and ongoing emotional reaction to an extreme psychological trauma, and as such often associated with soldiers, police officers, and other emergency personnel. The stressor may involve threat to life (or viewing the actual death of someone else), serious physical injury, or threat to physical or psychological integrity. In some cases, it can also be from profound psychological and emotional trauma, apart from any actual physical harm or threat. Often, however, the two are combined.

By the 1990s, "stress" had become an integral part of modern scientific understanding in all areas of physiology and human functioning, and one of the great metaphors of Western life. Focus grew on stress in certain settings, such as [[workplace stress]], and [[stress management]] techniques were developed. The term also became a [[euphemism]], a way of referring to problems and eliciting [[sympathy]] without being explicitly confessional, just "stressed out". It came to cover a huge range of phenomena from mild [[irritation]] to the kind of severe problems that might result in a real breakdown of [[health]]. In popular usage, almost any event or situation between these extremes could be described as stressful.

The American Psychological Association's 2015 Stress In America Study<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2015/snapshot.aspx|title=2015 Stress in America Snapshot|website=www.apa.org|access-date=6 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170316152627/http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2015/snapshot.aspx|archive-date=16 March 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> found that nationwide stress is on the rise and that the three leading sources of stress were "money", "family responsibility", and "work".