DESOLATION OF STRESS: CAUSES WHICH TRANSFORM STRESS INTO EXTREMISM AND VIOLENCE 

¹Prof. Dr. Anjum Bano Kazimi, ²Ms Amatul Zehra.Kazimi
¹IQRA University, Karachi,Pakistan  Pakistan, E-mail:anjum.bano@iuk.edu.pk
²University of Karachi, Pakistan, E-mail:amatulzehrak@gmail.com

Abstract

According to the medical term, stress is a physical, mental, or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension and brings a person to a point of "fight or flight" response, which is a complex reaction of neurologic and endocrinology system. In common terminology, stress is a pressure or a feeling that people have when they are overloaded and struggling to cope with internal or external demands. Stress is like increasing pressure on a spring or trying to pore something into the already filled pot. Bearing pressure by a spring depends upon its strength, flexibility or structure. In the same way, resisting or tolerating stress by a person depends on his or her building blocks, those are family, culture, religion, social environment as well as personal strength. Stress bearing power increases with positive support of these factors. But how much a person can absorb, tolerate, and convert stress into positive vibes has certain limits. In eastern culture, it is expected that a girl or woman should exhibit extreme tolerance under every circumstances. These expectations sometimes bring them to a point where their tolerance was exhausted or burst and brought them to a point of violence or terrorism, destruction to herself and to the society. According to Lee K, Lee HK, Kim S.H(2017), people can go to any extreme, they can kill others, or bring destruction to the society, culture, traditions, norms, and morals. How and when do people touch that level especially women? How can these situations be avoided, controlled or modified? How to keep stress under control Is the topic of this research. A qualitative strategy is used to explore how stress is managed, through a deductive method, the data were collected through purposive sampling from the population of five strata's, academia, psychologists, sociologists, criminologists and housewives to collect in-depth information. From fifteen respondent’s data was collected and recorded through unstructured two hours' interview questions, analyses of the responses were done through coding and developing themes. Results reveal that expectations of the people around, social norms, lack of personal strength, dis-encouragement and taking for granted behavior, lack of communication and fear of losing respect and relationship are important factors which bring stress to its height. It is suggested that keeping good friends, economic independence, good communication skills, religious practices, identifying your own de-stressors, establishing a support network, and prioritizing skills can help in controlling the outburst of stress and any move towards violence and terrorism.

Keywords: Stress. violence. terrorism.de- stressors. coping strategies