Mental Stress - The Two Paradigms

Mental stress is one of the most talked about but least understood phenomena in human life which has become ubiquitous esp. in this Covid times, and earned the notoriety of being the underlying cause of most of the physical and mental diseases. Since it is the most prominent energy dissipator, it has a negative influence upon the soft aspects of management e.g. leadership, communication etc.—thus irrespective of professional association everybody seems to have an interest in this topic. The present article goes beyond the concepts generally found in the mainstream psychology and argues that answers to the most pertinent questions like what is stress? why stress occurs? how to cope with it? etc. depend largely on our definition and understanding of human personality. Thus as one transcends the material dimensions of personality and enters into the spiritual domain, one discovers another more profound and reassuring paradigm dealing with stress which is more holistic and therefore more empowering to ameliorate it—the salient features of this worldview are explained in contrast with the prevalent thoughts.