Twenty-one-year-old Emily doesn’t eat breakfast before her 11 a.m. nutrition class because she knows she’s likely to feel uncomfortably full and bloated after. Lately, Emily has had frequent bouts of abdominal pain that are only relieved by a bowel movement, followed by several loose, watery stools. Her symptoms are worse when she eats a large meal, especially when the meal contains wheat, and right before a midterm exam or a paper is due. For a few weeks at the beginning of the semester, her symptoms had subsided. But lately, they’ve returned and appear to be getting worse.
Can you guess the reason for Emily’s gastrointestinal distress?
What advice might you give to help her relieve her symptoms?
Recall that Emily's distressing symptoms are more severe when she is preparing for a midterm exam or trying to meet assignment deadlines. How is the nervous system involved in the development of her symptoms?.
Emily has problem coping up with stress. The problem she has is extreme level of stress especially during any panic situation which here is the exam or the test. Human body respond to stress by the stimulus being send to the nervous system. The response here Is either flight or fight response. Unable to cope with the stressors she develops flight response.
Sudden and severe stress generally produces:
If the situation is judged as being stressful, the hypothalamus (at the base of the brain) is activated.
The hypothalamus in the brain is in charge of the stress response. When a stress response is triggered, it sends signals to two other structures: the pituitary gland, and the adrenal medulla.
These short term responses are produced by The Fight or Flight Response via the Sympathomedullary Pathway (SAM). Long term stress is regulated by the Hypothalamic Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) system.
Twenty-one-year-old Emily doesn’t eat breakfast before her 11 a.m. nutrition class because she knows she’s likely...