2.2.26. Beyond the Traditional “Stress” Model - Stress: Acute and Chronic

Summary: The text discusses the body's response to stress, differentiating between acute and chronic stress. Acute stress involves a heightened central nervous system and increased hormone production, while chronic stress leads to system inefficiency and disease susceptibility. The text emphasizes the importance of coherent bodily function for health and well-being.

Now look at the stress. On the left, you see acute stress response. On the right, you see chronic stress response. So in acute stress, central nervous system is ramped up to the maximum. That's what you see here. The adrenal and are working at the top capacity. There is a huge amount of glucocorticoid circulating in your blood. blood coagulation system is also tuned up because your body expects some kind of wound or trauma. So your blood now clots much more easy. But this is not a coherent state of operation. You can't sustain this kind of super activated type response for only so much because you are operating at the expense of your body resources. You can sustain it maybe for hours, maybe for a few days, maybe for a few weeks, but eventually your body gets exhausted and now you get lower and lower and lower and lower until you go below the physiologic norm and now you manifest the disease. So now you get to this chronic stress response, meaning now you're functioning not coherently at all meaning you still have the same amount of, let's say, food and oxygen in your body, but now your systems are not working together. They're completely off the tune. They're highly inefficient, and that's when you're prone to disease, to infections or if it continues for years, you can develop some really serious chronic disease.