The General Adaptation Syndrome - What is it?

Yay our first topic! Is anyone else excited?? No? Ok well let's get started then shall we? Just to recap, my name is Shinara and I am doing a blog for my psychology project. Our first topic is the General Adaptation Syndrome.

So what is General Adaptation Syndrome anyways?

General Adaptation Syndrome is a three stage explanation, named by Hans Seyle (cofounder of the Canadian Institute of Stress in 1979), of the physical reaction to a stressor. A stressor is some kind of stimulus that causes a person stress. The three stages to this syndrome are alarm, resistance and exhaustion.

The alarm stage is first and starts when we first perceive the stressor. This gets the body to start to take action at least in a biological way. These changes start in the brain but end up being controlled by the endocrine system and the sympathetic nervous system which is a branch of the autonomic nervous system, the next tier of the peripheral nervous system. When the body encounters a stressor it engages the fight or flight response. This is an inherited response to the recognition of stress and is when a person either chooses to challenge the stressor or run from it. The body begins to use its reserved energy and resources.

The resistance stage, also known as the adaptation stage, is known for lengthening the sympathetic activity to try and gain back energy and fix the damage being caused by the stressor. Hormone levels are now lower than the alarm stage but still higher than they should be. This second stage is activated if the stressor is not taken care of after the alarm stage is activated

Finally the exhaustion stage. Even though humans have different levels of the amount of stress they can handle, everyone will eventually become exhausted if the stress does not stop. Passing this line can make the individual more susceptible to disease, illness and even death.

Next up is how this applies to my life!