Rational Psychosis: The trending folly of a stressed generation.

Sincerely, I do not wish to make a treatise out of this caption nor would I want to explain away this discussion, in terms of abstract impressions that may ultimately lead to obscurity. My only desire is to highlight, as the title of this paper implies, a common factor that has permeated the system, just like a viral invasion, perniciously it has taken almost absolute control of mankind’s original make up. So firstly, I will start by defining the word psychosis with respect to its grave implications to humanities’ existence.  Further down, stress, as the precursor to the folly boggling this generation earned a fair discuss as you shall notice.

The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English defines Psychosis as “a serious mental illness that can change your character and make you unable to behave in a normal way”. Also, according to Merriam Webster Dictionary, Psychosis “is a fundamental derangement of the mind (as in schizophrenia) characterized by defective or lost contact with reality especially as evidenced by delusions, hallucinations, and disorganized speech and behavior”

Now pondering on these denotations from a technical point of view, the best example of a case study that easily pops up in a conscientious mind is a fully unclad or half
clad lunatic or at least a queer and/or aggressive anti social individual. However, a shift in thought pattern, to the point of view of the connotative meanings in the definitions above also reveals an extended knowledge and name for subtly similar case study, for instance, in this part of the world, Africa especially, it has been an age-long tradition to ascribe unique regalia and fashion to women and men, which clearly expresses womanhood as distinct from manhood, some of which include tying of wrapper, wearing makeup, ear rings, skirts, plaiting of hair and so on. Then you see the men stout and strong in their outfit, dressed in the agbada, title caps, shirts and trousers, and so on.

Of course, just as expected, anything outside of these traditionally or morally acceptable dress codes would pass for psychosis, if any man decides to plait his hair or wear ear rings. Or any woman decides to put on the agbada meant for the men folks. Funny as these might be, the truth is that these instances are already trending in this part of the world, they called it fashion. And they forget the golden rule that stipulates putting on wears suitable for you and befitting the occasion. This and a few more examples of fallouts in social ethics and rules of engagement informed the heading of this paper-Rational Psychosis.

This now brings us to discussions on stress and its consequences on this generation. Psychologists define stress as the emotional and physical way in which we respond to pressure. Many people experience stress on a daily basis, and many of the stressors are the same for everyone. Some people are, by nature or habit, more susceptible to stress, or more likely to be stressed by something that would more easily roll off someone else's back. However, so many factors according to research,  financial problems, personal relationships, children, daily hassles / being too busy, jobs and the workplace cause stress.

Stress can cause both mental and physical symptoms. The effects of stress are different for different people. The mental (emotional) symptoms of stress include: tension irritability, inability to concentrate, feeling excessively tired, and trouble sleeping.

The physical symptoms of stress include: dry mouth, a pounding heart, difficulty breathing, stomach upset, headache, frequent urination, sweating palms, tight muscles that may cause pain and trembling.

It is almost impossible to live without some stress. And most of us wouldn't want to, because it gives life some spice and excitement. But if stress gets out of control, it may harm your health, your relationships, and your enjoyment of life as well as the general working of the society.

Technological advances and cultural transitions have expanded the business day and even social order. Leisure time has shrunk. Business men and women take leisure time and vacations at beaches, hometowns or restaurants on Sundays with cellular phones stuck to their ears, or pockets planning the next morning's meetings. The family icons of today are working couples picking up their children on their way home to dinners prepared by caterers or fast food chefs. Grieving time has shrunk. The divorce rate hovers near its highest in history. The concept of job security has gone the way of the dirigible. Yet there is no time to pick up the pieces.

The effects of stress are even more profound than imagined. It penetrates to the core of our being. Stress is not something that just grips us and, with time or effort, then lets go. It changes us in the process. It alters our bodies—and our brains, thinking and actions and in the long-run, our character.

We may respond to stress as we do an allergy. That is, we can become sensitized, or acutely sensitive, to stress. Once that happens, even the merest intimation of stress can trigger a cascade  of chemical reactions in brain and body that assault us from within. Stress is the psychological equivalent of ragweed. Once the body becomes sensitized to pollen or ragweed, it takes only the slightest bloom in spring or fall to set off the biochemical alarm that result in runny noses, watery eyes, and the general misery of hay fever. But while only some of us are genetically programed to be plagued with hay fever, all of us have the capacity to become sensitized to stress.

Stress sensitization is uncharitably subversive. While the chemical signaling systems of body and brain are running amok in a person sensitized to stress, that person's perception of stress remains unchanged. It's as if the brain, aware that the burner on the stove is cool, still signals the body to jerk its hand away. "What happens is that sensitization leads the brain to re-circuit itself in response to stress," says psychologist Michael Meaney, Ph.D., of McGill University. "We know that what we are encountering may be a normal, everyday episode of stress, but the brain is signaling the body to respond inappropriately." We may not think we are getting worked up over running late for an appointment, but our brain is treating it as though our life were on the line.

Because some stresses are absolutely necessary in living creatures, everyone has a built-in gauge that controls our reaction to it. It is a kind of biological thermostat that keeps the body from launching an all-out response literally over spilled milk. Sensitization, however, lowers the thermostat's set point, says psychologist Jonathan C. Smith, Ph.D., Founder and Director of the Stress Institute at Roosevelt University in Chicago. As a result, the body response typically reserved for life-threatening events is turned on by life's mundane aggravations. In this hothouse of hyperactivity, bio-chemicals unleashed by stress may boil over at the most trivial of events, like being shunted to voice mail or losing a vantage position beside a good looking person en route to work n a commuter bus.

"Years of research have told us that people do become sensitized to stress and that this sensitization actually alters physical patterns in the brain," says Seymour Levine, Ph.D., of the University of Delaware. "That means that once sensitized, the body just does not respond to stress the same way in the future. We may produce too many excitatory chemicals or too few calming ones; either way we are responding inappropriately."

The revelation that stress itself alters our ability to cope with stress has produced yet another remarkable finding: Sensitization to stress may occur before we are old enough to prevent it ourselves. New studies suggest that animals from rodents to monkeys to humans may experience still undetermined developmental periods during which exposure to stress is more damaging than in later years. "For example, we have known that losing a parent when you are young is harder to get over than if your parent dies when you are an adult," says Jean King, Ph.D., of the University of Massachusetts Medical School. "What we now believe is that a stress of that magnitude occurring when you are young may permanently rewire the brain's circuitry, throwing the system askew and leaving it less able to handle normal, everyday stress."

It is the stew of chemicals released by such provocations that ultimately explains the noose stress ties between mind and body. "This new paradigm of stress demonstrates that there is a link between psychological events and physical eruptions, between mind and body," King says. "The psychological events that are most deleterious probably occur during infancy and childhood—an unstable home environment, living with an alcoholic parent, or any other number of extended crises." The new paradigm also firmly ties everyday psychological stress to such suspect complaints as ulcers, headaches, and fatigue.

The new blueprint of how we respond to stress also may explain why people have different tolerances for stress. In the past stress tolerance may have been chalked up to mental fortitude: "He's a rock," or "She's really bearing up under pressure." Now it's clear that our ability to withstand stress has less to do with whether we are strong-willed than with how much and what kind of stress we encountered in the past.

Whether we end up stressed-out executives or laid-back surfers, we all start out with the same biological machinery for responding to stress. Stress activates primitive regions of the brain, the same areas that control eating, aggression, and immune response. It switches on nerve circuits that ignite the body's fight-or-flight response as if there were a life-threatening danger.

From this evidence researchers have concluded that the stress response is "wired" into the brain, that we inherit the same ancient reactions that jump-started hunter-gatherers to escape a charging saber-tooth tiger without having to give their actions time-consuming thought. Only this same life-or-death reaction is now called into play largely by non-life-threatening situations. Studies have found the same fight-or-flight circuits all working overtime in response to such varied stressors as extreme exercise, the death of a loved one, an approaching deadline.

One conclusion from the evidence is that we may be victims of evolution, hard-wired with a stress response system that's better suited to a life filled with occasional life-threatening events than one filled with everyday irritations like failing a test or blowing a sales call. Unfortunately, when stresses become routine, the constant biochemical pounding takes its toll on the body; the system starts to wear out at an accelerated rate.

By responding to the stress of everyday life with the same surge of biochemicals released during major threats, the body is slowly killing itself. The biochemical onslaught chips away at the immune system, opening the way to cancer, infection, and disease. Hormones unleashed by stress eat at the digestive tract and lungs, promoting ulcers and asthma. Or they may weaken the heart, leading to strokes and heart disease. "Chronic stress is like slow poison," King observes. "It is a fact of modern life that even people who are not sensitized to stress are adversely affected by everything that can go wrong in the day."

However, it’s been proven that any mental illness or any other mind-related problem that can change your character as the aforementioned definition defines, can be traced down to two sources; (1) the physical exertion or alteration of the body makeup such as in diseased body or when one’s brain structure is damaged or malfunctions due to accident or the gene factor, and (2) due to the scope of one’s perception of the world (environment) such as belief system, education, or personal philosophy of life. Some people might want to add a third source, witchcraft (juju). But remember that the benchmark for measuring a mental illness is not necessarily constant and varies with the norm or cultures of societies at a particular period of time. Just as in the eyes of a community of lunatics, the few sane persons are deranged, since the sane don’t do lunatic things. And that’s their morality, justified only in their own eyes, of course and anything outside of that, brews trouble. No wonder it’s often said, “When you go to Rome, you behave like the Romans”.

Nevertheless, global activities including trade and diplomatic interactions between and among nations have since witnessed a common ground for distribution and transference of culture or new ways of life as well as introduction and redistribution of new technologies called, globalization. This consequently had led to easy importation and exportation of trade deals, economic and political aids and exchanges among nations thereby creating the platform for the development of third-world nations including Nigeria.

Globalization, though very relevant in this era of fast-growing information technology has also brought with it problems associated with unguarded use and abuse of the merits of jet age. One of the disadvantages of this era is the unwitting induction of impatience in the character of the global villagers due to the fastness, ease and efficiency in the processing and retrieving of information this era portends. So this present generation is said to contend with availability of large volume of global information and news only at the behest of one click away with the now cheap and affordable smart phones, desktop computers or PCs and their efficient but sophisticated interconnectedness.

Take for instance, in preparing a textual document with a computer system, a little delay in response from the command could mildly or gravely irritate the operator depending on the amount of patience the particular operator can muster. Yet the same operator would ever prefer the use of the computer to typewriter or any other crude methods of doing the same work. This impatience however, borne out of the fact that in this fast moving era of information technology, any crude method applied in the process of retrieving or disseminating information also induces stress.

Furthermore, some folks may argue to defend the vogues as dynamism in social trends, and would easily gear up to accuse anyone with contrary opinion as having antiquated taste and style. This is what deviants do to rationalize their actions or inactions as they proudly disregard the supremacy of morality over the vogue things- Rational Psychosis. Yet they forget that morality is man’s invention for profitable social interaction, it is conformity to ideals of right human conduct.

Biology teaches us that there are two kinds of living kingdoms; the plant kingdom and animal kingdom. And that under animal kingdom, there are two groups of animals; the lower animals and the higher animals. It further teaches that humans belong to the group of higher animals due to the possession of larger and better developed brains. This attribute is said to have endowed man with the capacity to reason effectively and interact meaningfully with his environment. The institution of government, establishment of constitution, creation and enforcement of laws were made possible due to this inherent capacity.

From the foregoing, one can easily relate the rationale behind creating and abiding by a set and consensus rules and regulations (sometimes called principles, discipline, self-respect constitution, laws, culture, tradition, customs, etc) to the need to limit man’s instinctive excesses of greed, selfishness, and thirst for power or desire to control others. Of course several instances of fallouts in this setup have always left thinking minds with sour feelings. Anarchy as demonstrated by the current insurgency in the north, kidnapping, robbery, treasury looting, politics of do or die, assault, assassination, rape, slavery and manslaughter are some of its consequences.

Now, the fundamentality of freedom of thought and universality of every individual’s right-to-speak-freely his or her mind, though, did not guarantee safe landing  for unguarded actions but had ultimately generated opportunities for clash of ideas and interest as well as the introduction of ill traits, strange and unpleasant cultures, anti-social actions and many other unconventional behaviours into the moral status quo of organized societies, and as such has led to the institution of authority (enforcement) to ensure conformity to the ideals majorly accepted as normal and beneficial. In this sense, the courts, the security and enforcement bodies were borne.

In conclusion, globalization with its merits however has also engineered a kind of  Psychosis that is Rational as seen in acts of homosexualism/lesbianism, same-sex marriage, prostitution, Exam Malpractice, Extra-marital sex, Tattooing(which leaves the skin vulnerable to cancer), Health acts on illegal harvesting and transplant of human organs and other ludicrous bills and acts aided and abetted by some notable bigwigs in the society and world communities, lobbied and  ratified  into constitutions with all manner of insensate rationality as seen during congress deliberations remains the bane of social, mental and body sanctity in this present generation.