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Everyone experiences stress at some point in his or her life. However stress is particularly high when people need to start studying for exams that are coming up soon, and when more work and projects are piling up before the holidays come. Although stress is completely natural during these times as it might sharpen your senses, prolong periods of stress can be damaging to your health and body.
What is Stress?
Stress is an automatic reflex in the sight of “fight or flight”, which in other words is simply when your body responds to a danger. It acts as a protection mechanism by triggering a variety of chemicals to be released in the body that give you extra strength and energy to protect yourself and react to any danger.
However there are different types of stress, good and bad ones, so it is important to monitor your stress level. If your stress level goes too high, there may be damaging effects on your health, such as high blood pressure, increased risk of heart disease and mental problems. Therefore, next time you feel like your symptoms have worsen or increased, see your GP for ways to help.
Good stress sharpens your senses, gives you extra adrenaline and helps you focus more when studying for exams or during a competitive game. Bad stress has additional signs, making the stress levels higher than usual. This type of stress might shut down your body functions and prevents you from thinking, feeling or reacting.
The Stress Pathways
When you stress, two hormones are released from the brain: cortisol and adrenaline. These hormones cause the effects that you experience when you’re stressed, such as increased heart rate, headache and chest pains. The human body has two stress responses: the acute stress response and the chronic stress response.
The acute stress response, also known as the sympathy adrenal medullary ‘SAM’ pathway, is an unexpected and immediate danger response during “fight or flight” events. In this stress response pathway, the sympathetic nerves stimulate the body organs immediately and directly. This results in the “fight or flight” responses, such as increased heart rate and breathing rate, sweating, nausea and so on in order to protect the body. There is also a slow release of adrenaline from the adrenal gland in the kidneys as well to prolong the “fight or flight” response effects. Adrenalin stops when there is no more danger and allows the body to return back to normal.
The other response is the chronic stress response, also known as the hypothalamo pituitary adrenal ‘HPA’ pathway, and this is when stress is experienced for extensive periods of time. In this of response, the hypothalamus in the brain detects this long period of stress and releases CRF (corticotrophin releasing factor) to the pituitary gland via the bloodstream. This triggers ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone) to be released into the bloodstream from the pituitary gland to the adrenal cortex in the kidney, which releases corticosteroids, including cortisol. Cortisol is the stress hormone that causes all the stress effects on the body, such as increases blood pressure, weaker immune system and increases heart rate.
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Sources:
NCBI. 2011. Stress and hormones. Retrieved from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3079864/
PsychTeacher. Stress pathways. Retrieved from: http://www.psychteacher.co.uk/stress/stress-pathways.html
