In his book The Stress of Life, Hans Selye wrote that many different environmental stressors, such as heat or cold, pain, or danger, disrupt the body's equilibrium and lead to a three-phase physiological reaction

Question

Create your own example of an environmental stressor and then provide details of each of the three phases.
What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answer: A good answer will include the following key points.
• Example: A person living in a country that is at war is faced with constant danger and threat of death.
• The alarm phase of the general adaptation syndrome might occur when a bomb goes off nearby or they hear nearby gunfire. They would experience the release of epinephrine and norepinephrine and sympathetic nervous system arousal. This triggers the "fight-or-flight" response and includes characteristics like increased blood pressure, tense muscles, and increased heart rate.
• As they continue to be exposed to such stressors on a daily basis, they would enter the resistance phase. Their body becomes more vulnerable to other stressors, they become more irritable and annoyed by minor things.
• Eventually they reach the exhaustion phase, when the persistent stress of war has depleted the body of energy. They may become ill, developing chronic hypertension, headaches, digestive disorders, etc.