What is stress and how it is affects you. Stress occurs when there is an imbalance between demands made upon us and our ability to cope with those demands. The level of stress a person feel depends on their attitude as much as it does the coping mechanisms that they have in place. However, stress is not always bad. Some people cope well with stress, even thrive on it and use as a motivation to get things done. But when the term ‘stress’ is used in a clinical sense, it refers