Stress helps you meet your daily challenges and motivates you to reach your goals, ultimately making you a smarter, happier, and healthier person. However when you are stressed, what body reactions or clinical manifestations do you often experience? After studying the endocrine system and the stress response, can you explain how these clinical manifestations occur?
A stressful scenario might trigger a chain reaction of stress hormones. Moreover, it increases the body's metabolic demands as well as the consumption and excretion of several nutrients. People believe that when coping with stressful conditions, you should eat a lot and have lots of energy since stress creates a larger demand on the body for oxygen, energy, and nutrition.
As a person who loves to do a lot of things not only in the academics field but also in my personal life, dealing with stress is one inevitable activity that I frequently experience in my daily life. For several years now, I’ve been trying to control my emotions and stress but it is actually harder than I thought it would be. So, when there is an external factor that I could not control such as a sudden change in my schedule for the day or too much workload to the point that I cannot keep up, it often leads me to a stressful situation. Hence, behavior like increase in my heartbeat, sobbing, and headaches to the point where my veins in my forehead are already visible, are just some of the stress responses that my body exhibits.
After learning our body's endocrine system, I gained a thorough understanding of how our bodies trigger a series of biological changes known as the stress response whenever faced with stressful situations. Therefore, when we are under physical or mental stress, nerve signals in our hypothalamus trigger our fight-or-flight response. Our body utilizes Cortisols, more known as the body’s stress hormones, these substances signals our Adrenal Medulla gland to secrete hormones such as epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine. Furthermore, cortisols stimulate glucose release into the blood and boost the brain's usage of glucose for energy. It also switches down various functions in our body (such as digestion, reproduction, and development) to allow the focus to be on the stress response. These hormones act as neurotransmitters as they are released into the bloodstream in which it causes our heart rate and blood pressure to increase. Furthermore, research has shown that tears may increase the levels of our prolactin and adrenocorticotropic hormones in which it helps with regulating the stress level in our body. Therefore, helping us with returning to a more balanced state or condition.
The chemicals in our bodies will not cease until the tension is relieved or fades away. If it does not pass, our nervous system will repeatedly stimulate bodily reactions that might cause inflammation and cell damage.
References:
MediLexicon International. (n.d.). Epinephrine vs. norepinephrine: What to know. Medical News Today. Retrieved October 14, 2022, from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325485#summary
Stiles, K. (2021, November 2). Tears: What are they, why we cry, and more. Psych Central. Retrieved October 14, 2022, from https://psychcentral.com/blog/the-science-of-tears#emotional-tears
Stress and health. The Nutrition Source. (2021, January 15). Retrieved October 14, 2022, from https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/stress-and-health/#:~:text=Chronic%20stress%20can%20affect%20the,diet%2C%20a%20deficiency%20may%20occur.
Tortora, G. J., & Derrickson, B. H. (2011). Principles of Anatomy & Physiology (13th ed.). Wiley.