Stressed out.

Stress is estimated to cost the country 13 million working days a year, vast amounts of research funds and time are going into a variety of searches to understand this complicated syndrome and come up with effective treatments. Vivienne Parry examines the real scientific insights and emerging hopes. Stress is a rapidly expanding research field and a contentious modern day issue. Most of us are well adapted to acute stress but the stress response becomes dangerous when you get multiple stress responses, one after the other, or experience chronic stress that goes on for weeks and years. This programme assesses the shift from acute stress to chronic stress and the affects of the latter on our entire physiological and psychological well-being.