So, thanks Susan. So, how does our body respond to stress? Well, a physiologist
by the name of Hans Selye studied this, and he discovered that there were in
fact three distinct phases to the stress response. There's the alarm,
resistance and exhaustion. So, in stage one of the stress response, we have the
alarm stage. And in this stage, we're exposed to some kind of stress or
stresser, and our body responds two ways. First, the sympathetic nervous system
releases catecholamines. And secondly the adrenal glands of the of the HPA axis
releases cortisol. Now and this is our bodies preparation to deal with the
stress. But long term exposure to cortisol compromises our immune function as
we saw with
[UNKNOWN]
Susan. So, our bodies can't handle being in the alarm stage too long. We either
die or we cope. And if we cope, we enter Stage two, called resistance. And in
resistance, cortisol is still being released throughout our bodies. And this
cortisol helps activate us, arouses us and maintains a response. Now, long term
arousal though, is not good for our bodies, as we'll see here more in a minute.
So, in the third and final stage, we have exhaustion. And in the exhaustion
stage, what's going on is our body's been trying to fight this threat for such
a long time that we've become depleted of it's resources. And we have no
ability to fight off illness, because our immune system is compromised. In
fact, I'm sure many of you have gotten sick during finals. That's due to
exhaustion and lowered immune response.
