General Adaptation Syndrome

What is stress? Stress is something that every human being feels on a daily basis. According to Rosch (2017), Han Selye created the term stress in 1936 and defined stress as “the non-specific response of the body to any demand for change”. Stress can be good or bad. Myers & DeWall (2017), called good stress or positive stress Eustress and bad stress or negative stress is called distress. How does stress affect a person? Utilizing the Psychology in Everyday Life textbook and the video Stress: Portrait of a Killer; I will discuss general adaptation syndrome and stress effects on health.

Han Selye developed the general adaptation syndrome. It has three stages called alarm reaction, stage of resistance, and stage of exhaustion. The general adaptation syndrome prepares the body for danger so that we can

adapt and survive when encountering a threat (Myers & DeWall., 2017). For example, a person can experience stress when interviewing for a job. In the alarm stage the person may feel their heart beat faster, blood pressure elevate, and be nervous. During the stage of resistance the person would start to settle down and the nervousness may dissipate. In the exhaustion stage a person may feel relief, emotionally drained, or excited that the event is over. Breathing and the heart rate returns to normal during the exhaustion stage.
As someone that has worked in the health and human service field for years as a social worker, I learned through college courses, orientation and job training about the danger and risk associated with stress such as disease and death. What I did not know was according to Meyer & DeWall (2017) vaccines are less effective when a person is stressed and that wounds heal slower in stressed people because of the effect stress has on the immune system. Myers & DeWall (2017) explained that the immune system ability to function is diminished because stress hormones remove energy from lymphocytes that function to keep foreign invaders such as diseases and viruses out of the body. I have a better understanding of why many of my colleagues suffer with anxiety, depression, sickness, and experience burnout.
Robert Sapolsky a scientist and professor with Stanford University studied baboon’s response to stress.

According to Heminway, Sapolsky, Lovett, Williams & Biando (2008), baboon’s hierarchy system determined the stress levels experienced by each individual baboon. The top level baboons experienced less stress than lower ranked baboons. The lower ranked baboons were bullied by higher ranked baboons which increased their stress. In addition, his research showed that animals turn off stress faster than humans, stress causes the brain to shrink, and damages DNA by unraveling chromosomes (Heminway et al., 2008).

Furthermore, the Whitehall study examined the hierarchy of British civil servants and the relationship between work, health and stress. The findings were similar to the findings of the baboon study. According to the Whitehall study (Heminway et al., 2008), lower position civil servants experienced back pain, cancer, chronic lung disease, depression, heart disease, gastrointestinal disease, sickness absence, suicide and general sense of ill-health compared to higher position civil servants. This study proved that your work position is related to your health and

stress.
As human beings we experience stress seven days a week. The stress we experience can be good or bad. Research has shown a relationship between hierarchy and stress. The lower you are in the hierarchy system the more stress you are likely to feel. It is important to understand the health implications of stress so human beings can learn new techniques of dealing with stress to reduce the negative effects stress has on the human body.
References
Heminway, J., Sapolsky, R. M., Lovett, M., Williams, L., Biando, C., National
Geographic Television & Film., Stanford University. ... Warner Home Video
(Firm). (2008). Stress: Portrait of a killer. Washington, DC: National Geographic.
Myers, D. G., & DeWall, C. N. (2017). Psychology in Everyday Life (4th ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
Rosch, P. J. (2017, July 05). Hans Selye: Birth of Stress. Retrieved September 11, 2017, from https://www.stress.org/about/hans-selye-birth-of-stress/
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