Page 119 - Advanced Biblical Counseling Student Textbook

The Stress Response System
In the 1920s Walter Cannon confirmed that the stress response is part of a unified mind-body system.
This is but one part of the sympathetic nervous system’s response. When alerted by any of a number of
brain pathways, the sympathetic nervous system increases heart rate and respiration, diverts blood
from digestion to the skeletal muscles, dulls pain, and releases sugar and fat from the body’s stores – all
to prepare the body for the wonderfully adaptive response that Cannon called fight or flight. 183

There are alternatives to fight or flight. One is a common response to the stress of a loved one’s death:
withdraw. Pull back. Conserve energy. Faced with an extreme disaster, such as a ship sinking, people
become paralyzed by fear. Another stress response, especially common among women, is to seek and
give support: tend and befriend. Facing stress, men more often than women tend to socially withdraw,
turn to alcohol, or become aggressive. Women more often respond to stress by nurturing and staying
together. Oxytocin, a stress-moderating hormone is released during human, and animal, interaction.
This can help reduce stress levels. 184

Hans Seyle saw the way the body adapts to stress as general adaptation syndrome (GAS). He felts stress
has three phases. Let’s say you suffer a physical or emotional trauma. In Phase 1, you experience an
alarm reaction due to the sudden activation of your sympathetic nervous system. Your heart rate
zooms. Blood is diverted to your skeletal muscles. You feel the faintness of shock. With your body
alerted to stress, you are now ready to fight the challenge during Phase 2, resistance. Your temperature,
blood pressure, and rapid breathing remain high, and there is a sudden outpouring of hormones. If
persistent, the stress may eventually deplete your body’s reserves during Phase 3, exhaustion. With
exhaustion, you are more vulnerable to illness or even, in extreme cases, collapse and death. Few
medical experts today argue with Selye’s basic point: Although the human body comes designed to

183 Ibid.
184 Ibid.

118