Psychology. About stress Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Psychology. About stress - Essay Example Later, he experimented upon animals by injecting toxic chemical in their bodies and found three common reactions. The organisms’ adrenal glands increased, their organs which produced the white blood cells and their lymph nodes initially expanded and shrank later, and thirdly, their intestines and stomachs bled. These reactions were termed by Hans Selye as the General Adaptation Syndrome. He said that when an organism or a human being gets into stress, the usual physiologic systems are interrupted and the resulting changes cause diseases. The physical and emotional upset organisms experienced upon injection of the toxic substance caused such patterns to develop which would cause infection, disease and ultimately death if left untreated. The General Adaptation Syndrome Selye talked about can be divided into three phases namely the alarm reaction, resistance and exhaustion (â€Å"Health News Network†). In the Alarm Reaction Stage, the resistance is lowered because of initi al depression of the immune system. This increases the tendency to acquire disease. When the stress does not stay for long, the individual recovers. With the passage of time, the body adapts to the rising levels of stress. This increases the body’s ability to resist the consequential disease.