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A person who is stressed typically has anxious thoughts and difficulty concentrating or remembering. Stress can also change outward behaviors. Teeth clenching, hand wringing, pacing, nail biting, and heavy breathing are common signs of stress. People also feel physically different when they are stressed.
Butterflies in the stomach, cold hands and feet, dry mouth, and increased heart rate are all physiological effects of stress that we associate with the emotion of anxiety. Stress is caused when a person is very angry or depressed and cannot control the anger or depression so he or she holds it in making him or herself stressed out. This can cause that person to act differently emotionally and physically. There are many changes that will happen to the body.
Some things that will happen to the body are your muscles and vessels will get tightened and smaller if you are tense. This will cause sallow skin over a period of time. The release of neuropeptides can also trigger hives and make worse of existing cases of eczema, psoriasis, and rosacea. Moreover, under stress, your bodily secretions increase, resulting in breakouts and body odor, and your antibody levels decrease, making you more prone to cold sores.
Valacyclovir, a prescription medication, is commonly used to reduce healing time of cold sores. There are things people can do to make them go away, such as hives which usually go away on their own, but to make the healing go faster, treat them with an OTC 1 percent hydrocortisone cream. Mild cases of eczema and psoriasis can also be treated with this, but for more severe cases, dermatologists can prescribe a higher percentage hydrocortisone for eczema, a vitamin A cream that speeds up cell renewal for psoriasis. Benzoyl peroxide cream betters rosacea bumps, but a dermatologist can also prescribe Metro Gel, Noritate, or Novocet Lotion to ease redness. Acne and body odor are easier to treat. Use a salicylic acid cream for acne.
Antiperspirants containing some form of aluminum salt are the best way to halt excess sweating and to increase efficacy. Dr. Bank suggested a twice-a-day application to ensure that the active ingredient penetrates your sweat glands. Also, use an antibacterial soap in the shower to banish odor-producing bacteria. You will probably know someone is being stressed out when a person appraises an event as stressful; the body undergoes a number of changes that heighten physiological and emotional arousal. First, the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system is activated.
The sympathetic division prepares the body for action by directing the adrenal glands to secrete the hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine. In response, the heart begins to beat more rapidly, muscle tension increases, blood pressure rises, and blood flow is diverted from the internal organs and skin to the brain and muscles. Breathing speeds up, the pupils dilate, and perspiration increases. This reaction is sometimes called the fight-or-flight response because it energizes the body to either confront or flee from a threat.
Another part of the stress response involves the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland, parts of the brain that are important in regulating hormones and many other bodily functions. In times of stress, the hypothalamus directs the pituitary gland to secrete adrenocorticotropic hormone. This hormone, in turn, stimulates the outer layer, or cortex, of the adrenal glands to release glucocorticoids, primarily the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol helps the body access fats and carbohydrates to fuel the fight-or-flight response.
Canadian scientist Hans Selye was one of the first people to study the stress response. As a medical student, Selye noticed that patients with quite different illnesses shared many of the same symptoms, such as muscle weakness, weight loss, and apathy. Selye believed these symptoms might be part of a general response by the body to stress. In the 1930 s Selye studied the reactions of laboratory rats to a variety of physical stressors, such as heat, cold, poisons, strenuous exercise, and electric shock. He found that the different stressors all produced a similar response: enlargement of the adrenal glands, shrinkage of the thymus gland which is a gland involved in the immune response, and bleeding stomach ulcers. Selye proposed a three-stage model of the stress response, which he termed the general adaptation syndrome.
The three stages in Selye's model are alarm, resistance, and exhaustion. The alarm stage is a generalized state of arousal during the bodys initial response to the stressor. In the resistance stage, the body adapts to the stressor and continues to resist it with a high level of physiological arousal. When the stress persists for a long time, and the body is chronically overactive, resistance fails and the body moves to the exhaustion stage.
In this stage, the body is vulnerable to disease and even death. These are the effects of stress, how you can detect a sign of a person who is suffering severely to it and how it can be cured. Hopefully now you know how to stay away from stress and the serious dangers it can cause.
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Research essay sample on Fight Or Flight Response Effects Of Stress
