Stress
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This paper will discuss the topic of stress. Special emphasis will be placed on job-related stress as it pertains to police officers. In the 1950s, Dr. Hans Selye was among the first scientists to arrive at a definition of the term "stress." Selye described stress as "the state manifested by a specific syndrome which consists of all the nonspecifically induced changes within a biological system" (Frew, 1977, p. 56). In everyday terms, this refers to "the effects of all outside forces on your body, whether they be psychological or physical, and the body's resultant change due to those forces" (Sorrentino and Hausman, 1986, p. 133). Selye's definition refers to "nonspecifically induced changes," which means that stress is "caused by many different and changing agents" (Frew, p. 57). Therefore, it can be seen that there are a variety of potential elements which may act as stressors within a particular person's environment. It is interesting to note that stress within the human organism has positive as well as negative effects. In particular, stress is positive at times because it "elevates blood pressure and speeds up body functions so that we can be more aware and alert" (Sorrentino and Hausman, p. 133). This is obviously a vital factor in responding to an emergency, for example. However, whenever the body fails to calm down following such a stress reaction, a number of physiological and psychological problems may result. Many researchers in the field have referred to this
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rtunities for police officers to maintain quality time at home with their wives and children (Distelheim, p. 52). As a result, stress due to absence can frequently be found among both police officers and the individual members of their families. It may be noted that the element of hazard in the police officer's job also contributes strongly to the overall problems, which are related to domestic stress. In particular, it can be seen that the factor of worry on the part of the family, as well as the factor of denial on the part of the police officer, both contribute to the existence of stress in the home.
Despite the high level of stress, which is inherent in police work, there exist a number of coping mechanisms which are helpful for the reduction of stress. Learning to cope with stress effectively is very important because it is usually impossible for stressful elements to be completely removed from a worker's environment, particularly in the case of police officers. Therefore, it has been said that "We cannot hope to be stress-free. Thus, we must learn to recognize and deal with stress" (Frew, 1977, p. 48). Methods and techniques which are involved in the reduction of stress have proven to be beneficial in stress control. For e
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2994
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)
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