“Anxiety is the essential condition of intellectual and artistic creation”

Charles Frankel

ARTICLE

Needs, Expectations and Stress

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a useful tool to help describe our basic Needs and demonstrates how some personal needs are foundations for other needs. Using the Hierarchy of Needs it becomes easier to understand how by causing instability and stress at one level, then all levels above can become unstable, which makes them more vulnerable to stress.

It’s not appropriate to go into Maslow’s theory itself, or any other theory, except to demonstrate that Needs are often dependant on other Needs being met and maintained. For example, when we are drowning, the Need for breathing takes precedence over everything else. If we can’t sleep then this Need equally influences everything else.

No matter what Need becomes unstable the resultant stress will, if persistent over a period of time, start to destabilise the whole Hierarchy of Needs thus causing physical and mental harm. The Physiological ‘foundation’ level contains sleep and homeostatis, which are two elements most commonly influenced by stress. Stress often causes sleep patterns to become disturbed and can prevent the body and mind from returning to physiological normality or in other words a normal balanced state.