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?
- Stress is a part of my daily life, especially now that I am studying at UP. There are two types of stress that can be beneficial or detrimental. Eustress prepares us for certain challenges and is thus beneficial, whereas distress is harmful. A stressor is any stimulus that causes a stress response. A stressor can be almost any bodily disturbance. When I am stressed, my head aches, and I become irritable. Moreover, I vomit when I'm under a lot of stress. I also have a tendency to cry. Stress is countered by my body's homeostatic mechanisms. When they succeed, the internal environment remains within normal physiological boundaries. When stress is extreme, unusual, or long-lasting, the normal mechanisms may be insufficient. The musculoskeletal, respiratory, cardiovascular, endocrine, gastrointestinal, nervous, and reproductive systems are all affected by stress. When stressed, the brain initiates a series of events involving the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which is the primary driver of the endocrine stress response. This leads to an increase in the production of glucocorticoids, which include cortisol, also known as the "stress hormone." An increase in cortisol during a stressful event can provide the energy needed to deal with a prolonged or extreme challenge.
References:
Tortora, G. J., & Derrickson, B. H. (2020, October 13). Principles of Anatomy and Physiology (16th ed.). Wiley.
American Psychological Association. (2018). Stress effects on the body. American Psychological Association. Retrieved October 14, 2022, from https://www.apa.org/topics/stress/body