What is allostatic overload and what does it mean for the body?

What will be an ideal response?


Answer: When the degree of stress is not manageable–when stressors are severe and persistent–the homeostatic mechanisms that formerly helped you adapt become depleted. At this point, your body enters an exhaustion phase and, as a result, you experience stress-related disease and burnout. Some researchers introduced the term allostatic overload to describe the exhaustion phase. The prefix allo- means "variability," so an allostatic overload is a harmful state resulting from excessive change. But whether we call it exhaustion or allostatic overload, the result of chronic, excessive stress is always a failure of homeostasis, which is inevitably manifested as disease.

Health & Biomechanics

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