Stress, Affective Status and Neurodegenerative Onslaughts

Abstract

Stress, i.e. distressful, negative affect and depressive mood are associated with destructive neurodegenerative progressions involving pro-inflammatory dispositions, stroke and cardiovascular complications, and diabetes and metabolic syndrome all of which present harbingers for poor health and ill-being. Negative affect, as an indicator of anxiety and neuroticism, has repeatedly been linked to exposure to adverse and traumatic environments concomitant with psychological distress that underlie maladaptive and self-destructive behaviours expressed in psychopathology. Eustress, from the Greek ‘Good stress’, implies beneficial stress whether psychological, physical, neurochemical or radiological and is not defined by form or type but rather perception and ‘appraisal’ of the stressors. It is linked to hormesis-based adaptive neuronal response mechanisms, such as fasting, sustained physical exercise and intellectually challenging lifestyles, that provide a protection against protect against neuronal damage from neurodegenerative and corrosive onslaughts of chronic and traumatic stress. The reciprocal determinant relationship between ‘hormesic stressors’ and individuals and organisms furnishes a springboard of beneficial development and health manifestation.