Stress vs Strain

Date: Tuesday, Septemeber 23, 2008
Time: 11 PM
Place: Kitchen

Stress is a normal part of daily life. It’s what fuels that built-in fight-or-flight
response that you have for help in defending yourself against things —
people, circumstances, events — that threaten your survival. Stress isn’t a
choice — it’s a gift (even though it doesn’t feel like one!).
Strain, on the other hand, is what happens to your body when you become
overstressed — that is, when you experience too much of a good thing. Think
of a bridge (I told you this comes from engineering!) that has cars constantly
crossing it year after year. Because of their weight, the cars stress the bridge.
The more cars that pass over, the greater the stress. Now, imagine that after a
few years, cracks begin to appear under the bridge — small at first, but larger
as time goes on. These cracks threaten the integrity of the bridge. The cracks
represent the strain that inevitably occurs from too much stress. The bridge
is you — your body, your health.