What is stress?

Stress and restoration are crucial factors influencing cognitive development and mental health in children. Stress is a response to perceived internal and external demands that challenge an organism's balance/homeostasis, often exceeding adaptive capacities especially in unpredictable and uncontrollable situations. Responses to stressors can be physiological e.g. releasing stress-related hormones such as cortisol as a reaction to a stressful situation. Chronic stress, resulting from prolonged exposure to demanding situations perceived as harmful, is closely tied to mental well-being and mental illnesses like depression. Stressors are all demanding external and internal challenges, e.g., pollutants, social relations, economic and ecological stressors, critical life events, worries, and occupational stressors.