Question

Describe the process using your own words the changes that the concept of stress has undergone from Bernard to Sterling and Eyer (1988).

TABLE 1.3 Evolution of concepts of stress

Stage 1: Claude Bernard: Disruption to the ability to maintain a constant fluid environment bathing cells of the body–the internal environment.

Stage 2: Walter Cannon (1929, 1939): Threats to homeostasis evoke activation of the sympathoadrenal system as a functional unit. The concept of homeostasis suggests that regaining balance only requires local changes in the body.

Stage 3: Hans Selye (1946): Stress as a state characterized by a uniform response pattern, regardless of the particular stressor, that could lead to long-term pathologic changes.

Stage 4: Sterling and Eyer (1988): Process of achieving stability through physiological or behavioral change with the assumption that no single ideal set of steady-state conditions in life exists and setpoints and other response criteria change continuously. Allostasis suggests that adaptation to a stressor involves all the process in the body.

Answer 1

Stage-1: Claude Bernard says that the origin of stress can be both psychological and physiological. It is an agitation on homeostasis. Heat, cold and other physical matters directly creates perturbation in the homeostasis. They are external stimulation and they originate stress.

Similarly, anger, fear, emotion etc are the external stimuli that cause internal perturbation and it generates stress.

Stress is the product of hormonal, neurological and behavioural and psychological disorder. It is also caused by the secretion from hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) system . The Locus Coeruleus-norepinephrine (LC-NE) system, and the Extrahypothalamic Corticotropin releasing Hormone (CRH) system also generate internal disorders and it causes stress.

Stage-2 : With the term ‘homeostasis’ Cannon suggests the mental stability and equilibrium. For maintaining the internal variability there brain coordinates with body. He says that brain responses to all the emergencies in a being by controlling the secretion of adrenaline.

He says that the stress depends on the secretion of the adrenaline. It has a dominant response in the body and the survival of life also largely depends on it. He uses the term “general adaptation syndrome” and says that stress is regulated by this syndrome and the responses of stress move in the vertebrate and other organs.    

Stage-3: Seyle mentions some stimuli that cause alarm reaction. These stimuli cause the enlargement of the adrenal and it results the secretion of the putative hormone. To him stress is an accidental emotional factor. Stress also increases the secretion of the corticoid hormones.

He says that the disruption of the hormones also causes disorder in the body and it also causes many diseases. Stress also causes abnormal functions in the nervous system. Stress also causes many abnormalities in the behaviors. It makes one impulsive and reactive.   

Stage-4: According to Hans Selye: "Stress is the nonspecific response of the body to any demand." It is a nonspecific response and this response is caused by the condition on demand. Here it is said that stress is caused if there is no mental stability and stability is caused by constancy.

There are the sources of the stress that cause negative stimuli and they are responsible for the disorder in physical and psychological levels. There are certain conditions that cause stress and these conditions should be restricted. It is termed as a neuro-endocrine reaction, an uncontrolled situation caused by the disorder of the nervous system.