The term “Stress” is used to describe an individual's’ response to PRESSURE. The response can be psychological and/or behavioural. How a person responds to stress will depend on their personality, their perceptions and their past experience. People respond to stress differently, some function well under stress while others do not. So, what happens to our bodies when we are stressed out?
This fundamental physiologic response forms the foundation of modern day stress medicine. The "fight or flight response" is our body's primitive, automatic, inborn response that prepares the body to "fight" or "flee" from perceived attack, harm or threat to our survival.
What happens to us when we are under excessive stress?
When we experience excessive stress—whether from internal worry or external circumstance—a bodily reaction is triggered, called the "fight or flight" response. Originally discovered by the great Harvard physiologist Walter Cannon, this response is hardwired into our brains and represents a genetic wisdom designed to protect us from bodily harm. This response actually corresponds to an area of our brain called the hypothalamus, which, when stimulated, initiates a sequence of nerve cell firing and chemical release that prepares our body for running or fighting
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What are the signs that our fight or flight response has been stimulated?
When our fight or flight response is activated, sequences of nerve cell firing occur and chemicals like adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol are released into our bloodstream. These patterns of nerve cell firing and chemical release cause our body to undergo a series of very dramatic changes…
Our respiratory rate increases
Blood is shunted away from our digestive tract and directed into our muscles and limbs, which require extra energy and fuel for running and fighting
Our pupils dilate
Awareness intensifies
Sight sharpens
Impulses quicken
Perception of pain diminishes.
Our immune system mobilizes with increased activation.
We become prepared—physically and psychologically—for fight or flight. We scan and search our environment, "looking for the enemy."
When our fight or flight system is activated, we tend to perceive everything in our environment as a possible threat to our survival. By its very nature, the fight or flight system bypasses our rational mind, where our more well thought out beliefs exist and moves us into "attack" mode. This state of alert causes us to perceive almost everything in our world as a possible threat to our survival. As such, we tend to see everyone and everything as a possible enemy. We may overreact to the slightest comment. Our fear is exaggerated. Our thinking is distorted. We see everything through the filter of possible danger. We narrow our focus to those things that can harm us. Fear becomes the lens through which we see the world!
Pamela McCormack
