Stress is a physical response of our body. Our body reacts in different when we are stressed. When our mind and body feels like it’s under attack, it switches to either fight or flight mode. It means that our consciousness either face the problem and deal with it or just run away from it. This is a cavemen theory, when in the past times the cavemen used to come face to face with a wild animal; say tiger, their body used to go into stress right away and a number of hormones and chemicals get released in their system. The adrenaline being one of which helped the cavemen to make a decision, to either fight the beast or quickly run away. The chemical and hormones which get released in our bodies while in stress apart from adrenaline are cortisol and norepinephrine.
All these hormones lead to a number of reactions:
- -increase in the heart rate and blood pressure
- -increase in blood glucose to provide more energy
- -relaxation of the smooth muscles to allow more oxygen to the lungs
- -dilation of the pupils to take in as much light as possible
- -constriction of the veins to send more blood to major muscle groups
- -shift of the focus of the brain from small tasks to only the tasks
- -shutting down of the non-essential systems (like digestion and immune system) to allow more energy to the emergency functions.
The three stages of stress:
The first stage: It is the phase where the defense mechanisms of our body get activated. The body gets alarmed to respond to some distress.
The second stage: In this stage the defense mechanism of our body works top notch to make the body maintain its balance. It has two sections: the resistance phase and the compensation phase.
The third stage: This is the exhaustion phase when the body’s defense system no longer works the way it has been and the system starts to lose momentum. In this stage the symptoms we have been having for long now urge us to see a consultant or a doctor, to talk about the problems out loud and to find a way out of it.
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