Page 15 - RACE HEALER Mag Volume 1
P. 15

Allostatic  Load &  Health  Disparities




                                                                  By  L.E.  Gomez


          I. Homeostasis & The Stress                                         that we even diminish focus on details such as facial
                                                                              expressions: great in an emergency, terrible when predetermined
          Response                                                            biases are informing what constitutes an actual threat (more on
                                                                              that later). Furthermore, these high levels of cortisol also short-
                                                                              circuit our memory center in the hippocampus, making it
          We take for granted that homeostasis, our normal state of equi-     difficult to form memories based on the details of the event and
          librium, keeps our bodies and minds at or near steady levels        while allowing us only to learn how to become more sensitive
          of physiologic function despite a spectrum of change in our         to similar events in the future, which also served as the basis for
          external environments. We sweat when it’s warm, shiver when         a post-traumatic stress disorder. This hypothalamic-pituitary-
          cold, and breathe faster at high altitudes to compensate for lower   adrenal (HPA) or neuroendocrine axis, involves our entire
          levels of oxygen in the air. We also take in sensory data about     make-up and affects every physiologic component of our being.
          our environment on a regular basis, processing sights, sounds,      More than at any other time, humans are bio-psycho-social-
          and other sensory data through a part of our brain called the thal-   spiritual beings and
          amus and send that information on for higher order processing in    our entire system is never more integrated than when we are thus
          our brain’s cerebral cortex. But what happens when our environ-     transformed in these critical stress states.
          ment presents us with immediate threats to survival or stress?

          The mechanism we evolved for responding to acute, potentially
          lethal, stress is lighting quick, fundamental to our make-up, and
          extremely difficult to interrupt. Imagine our genetic predecessors
          out foraging for food or on a hunt, encountering a predator or
          member of a competing tribe, an enemy. They had two choices:
          prepare to eliminate the threat or get out fast. The well-known
          “fight or flight” response is fundamental to our physiology and
          the opposite of slow and considered decision-making since more
          time means dead in critical situations.

          Emergency states trigger the emotional core of the brain, our
          amygdala, and the perceived threat detonates an out- burst of
          hormones and neurotransmitters that bypass the thalamic-
                                                   cortical loop, and go      Once a threat is past, and the stressor eliminated, we need rest to
                                                   direct- ly from            recover. This period of recovery has been well-studied and re-
                                                   stimulus to the            quires about 20 minutes to resolve. Serious long-term problems
                                                   hypothalamus and           arise if we experience recurrent stress states without allowance
                                                   pituitary which            for those recuperation periods.
                                                   activate our adrenals
                                                    to pump out blasts of
                                                    cortisol and adrena-      II. Allostasis & Resiliency
                                                    line, hormones
                                                    that initiate a cas-      Allostasis is the process by which our bodies recover from criti-
                                                    cade of physiologic       cal stress responses and return to homeostasis and each stressful
                                                    responses resulting       event adds to a total we call our allostatic load. Homeostasis, or

                                                   in:     increased
                                                   heart  rate,  blood
                                                   pressure,
          Reference: <a href="https://pngtree.com/">Graphics from                         Watch Dr. LE Gomez’
          pngtree.com</a>                          breathing,
                                                   redirection    of                               Interview on
         blood  flow  to  the  brain  and  muscles,  increased  muscle ten-
         sion, blood shunts away from skin and internal organs, liver                   www.RaceHealerTV.com
         conversion of glycogen to glucose ramps up to supply more fuel
         for quick energy, blood clots faster, pupils dilate and our field of
         vision narrows on the source of the threat to the point
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