what is stress?

The term stress has been defined in several different ways. Sometimes the term is applied to stimuli or events in our environment that make physical and emtional demands on us ,and sometimes it is applied to our emtional and physical reations to such stimuli .In this discussion ,we will refer to the environmental stimuli or events as stressors and to emtional and physical reactions as stress.
Many sorts of events can be stressors,including disasters such as hurricanes or tornadoes ,major life events such as divorce or the loss of job,and daily hassles such as having to wait in line at the supermaket when you need to be somewhere else in ten minutes.What all these events have in common is that they interfere with or threaten our assustomed our mental and physical resources in order to deal with the challenge .how well we succeed in doing so will determine how serious a toll the stress will takeon our mental and physical well-being.