I’ve just learned about the three phases the body’s reaction to stress from my psychology textbook of ‘alarm reaction’, ‘resistance’, and ‘exhaustion’ and the physiological ways the body changes in each and I am so inspired to write angst rn. I want to put fictional characters through the horrors So Bad
Some things this theory of stress says in my textbook that are Fun:
- during the alarm reaction the sympathetic nervous system activates and throw the body into a state of arousal, affecting organs, tissues, etc to increase our ability to fight or flight. Examples of this are dilating our eyes so we can see better, slowing our digestion to divert the blood to our skeletal muscles so we can run or fight better, increasing heart and breathing rate so we have more oxygen to supply to our blood (again better blood quality for fight or flight)
- the alarm reaction also leads to stress hormones, namely cortisol, being produced. Cortisol triggers an increase in blood sugar (again better blood quality to run or fight), and suppresses the immune system (this is why constant stress in our lives makes us more vulnerable to sickness) so that any injuries sustained do not result in tissue swelling which would restrict movement (fight or flight capability again)
- the resistance stage in which the parasympathetic nervous system is trying to counter the sympathetic nervous system’s aroused state to regain balance, lasts a varying amount of time depending on the stressor, the persons physical health, the external support a person may have (emotional, social, physical), etc. In this stage the sympathetic nervous system is still altering our physiology, which is taxing, and depleting our body’s resources.
- the exhaustion stage happens when the stressor continues (so our sympathetic nervous system continues it’s job) and our body’s resources become almost or completely depleted. This is dangerous, now we have an “increased vulnerability to disease and, in extreme cases, collapse and even death”. The theorist says that whichever body system is already weakest in the person will break down first, whether that’s cardiovascular, immune, or something else. This is where my textbook stops talking about the repercussions of the exhaustion phase, but it’s where my mind starts to really roam with writing opportunities.
Let your minds run wild artists and writers, go, be free, hurt your characters from the inside out