Phases of stress

Phases of stress

In certain moments of our lives, we face different moments that can be stressful. These are not necessarily negative, as it is a necessity for our body. The problem comes when these moments become periods and adhere themselves to our rhythm of life.

Upon finding ourselves facing a stressful situation, each person behaves in a different way but thanks to the investigations done by Hans Selye in 1975, today we can conclude that there are three phases which can explain how stress acts on our body and mind.

Alarm phase

In the reaction phase of alarm, the body reacts automatically when faced with stressful stimuli, and prepares the response that it will give.

In this phase the sympathetic nervous system is activated,giving signs of: dry mouth pupil dilation,sweating, muscle tension, increase in blood pressure and decrease in gastric secretion, rise in glucose synthesis and the secretion of adrenaline and noradrenaline.

There is also a psychological activation with an increase in attention span and concentration to maintain the perception of the stressful stimuli.

This reaction is transitory, adaptive and not harmful for the individual if the body has time to recover.

Resistance phase

This involves the phase of adaptation to the stressful situation. In this, a series of physiological, cognitive, emotional and behavioural processes destined to “manage” the stressful situation in the least damaging way for the person are developed.

Exhaustion phase

If the resistance phase fails, that is, if the adaptation mechanisms are not efficient, the depletion phase begins where physiological, psychological or psychosocial disorders tend to become chronic or even irreversible.