The word stress derives from the Latin word 'stringere' meaning to 'draw tight' and was used during the seventeenth century to describe hardships or affliction. Stress in the early stages can 'rev up' the body and enhance performance in the workplace, thus the term 'I perform better under pressure'. If this condition is allowed to go unchecked however and the body is revved up further then performance will ultimately decline and the persons health will degenerate. The symptoms of stress are believed to stem from our primitive 'fight or flight' response to perceived dangers. This response produces surges of chemical reactions in the blood stream which can cause psychological problems such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or Cumulative Stress Disorder for example. It is believed that man has retained much of his primitive hormonal and chemical defence mechanisms intact throughout the centuries which enabled the cave man to either fight the perceived danger or to retreat, thus the phrase 'fight or flight'. Unfortunately, the lifestyle which we live in today does not allow us to react physically to the problems which we face. We are not for example able to punch our boss when he or she is acting aggressively as such actions are all forms of behaviour that are not tolerated in today's society. Similarly, in today's society we are not able to use the 'flight' response either. The consequences for manager who flees from a stressful meeting are likely to be sweeping. It is believed that it is this denial of our primitive responses which causes the strains on our body and leads to stress related disease and sickness, as the adrenaline which runs through our body and prepares us for our basic responses has no outlet,

Cooper argues that "our thought patterns regarding ourselves and the situations we are in trigger events within two branches of our central nervous system, the 'sympathetic' and the 'parasympathetic' ". In short, the 'sympathetic' reaction is where the body, 'revs up' the adrenaline and other hormones in the blood stream in response to a perceived danger and the 'parasympathetic' is where the body 'revs down' and unwinds itself. The 'rev up' activity is designed to improve performance in the body however, as Cooper puts it "if the stress that launches this activity continues unabated, the human body begins to weaken as it is bombarded by stimulation and stress related chemicals".



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