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Fight Or Flight Stress Response
(General Adaptation Syndrome)

Fight or flight, or the stress response, evolved to help ancient human beings adapt to the world they lived in.  Primitive cave dwellers, who encountered a number of life and death situations, needed to be able to respond fast and powerfully to sudden events.  The stress response gave them the energy they needed to accomplish under normal circumstances.

Although we moderns don’t have to outsmart a saber-toothed tiger or run from a mastodon, we are equipped with the same response system that our primitive ancestors had.  Interestingly, it doesn’t matter what the stressful situation actually is that shifts us into the fight or flight mode.  What matters is how we perceived or interpret the situation.  Whatever we see as threatening, what we become anxious about, what makes us angry or impatient, all serve to patch us through to the circuits that turn on the stress response.  Instantaneously, such perceptions activate chemical messages that travel from the brain’s hypothalamus, pineal gland, amygdala, and the sensory cortex – throughout the body.  These chemical messages communicate an entirely different set of instructions than the ones used for healthy, normal living (homeostasis).  In this stress condition, the body’s priority is to manufacture as much energy as it can as fast as it can.  All other functions not crucial to producing immediate energy in response to the perceived emergency are suspended.

The second, the hypothalamus (our stress sensor) perceives the initial stress, the pituitary gland activates the adrenal glands to produce a number of stress hormones that begin the first of three stages of redirecting physiological activities.

In the first (acute) stage of alarm reaction, the adrenal hormones send the message to the body to increase the heart rate to prepare the body machine for increased inertia.  Next, the peripheral blood vessel in the hands, feet, and skin are constricted so that the internal vital organs can receive more blood.  Then, the spleen contracts and blood clotting increases to offset any potential for excessive bleeding.  The liver’s glycogen stores are released so as to increase the energy supply.  Sweat production is then increased to lower the rising body temperature.  Breathing steps up, and the respiratory passageways expand to facilitate oxygen intake which in turn allows the body to eliminate the excess carbon dioxide from catabolism (tissue breakdown for energy).  Finally, saliva and enzyme releases are decreased as digestion is not necessary.

Then, if stress persists, the second resistance response (chronic stress) stage engages.  Through the colinergic response, large stores of hydrochloric acid are released which are designed to burn food quickly so the body can fight, or flee, more efficiently.  This causes blood pH to become very acidic which is conducive to the energy burning function that becomes the body’s top priority during the stress response.

Having burned through its food sources, the body then begins to withdraw protein from the thymus and lymph glands to break it down for use as immediate energy.  Quite a bit of calcium is lost through this process, since almost 50% of the body’s calcium is bonded with proteins, which, remember, act as the body’s Public Works Department, constantly fixing and repairing the body.  During the stress response, all normal repair and maintenance work is suspended, as the body diverts all proteins from use as energy.  This withdrawal of protein from these critical glands is a powerfully destructive process.  Additionally, excess sugars store in the liver as starch or glycogen, ready to be instantly reconverted to energy on demand.

As part of this process, blood pressure rises to facilitate the flow of energy to vital organs.  Because the normal work of proteins is halted, the body withdraws minerals from the bones to use for repair work.  More calcium, so crucial to strong bones, is lost in this way, as are other minerals, including magnesium, so essential for calming nerves.  Again, the body is almost cannibalizing itself to mobilize all the energy it can to respond to the stress situation.  Fat is also called upon to be used as quick energy and sodium is retained in order to help the body hold on to its water reserves to prevent dehydration.

As I have said, the fight or flight response was designed to be used in emergency situations lasting very short periods of time.  It is essential that it be turned off as soon as possible to allow the body to return to its normal health-maintaining activities.  The stress response wasn’t meant to go on for long periods of time.  Thus, when the stress response becomes chronic, we end up depleting all the excess reserves in our organs.  We can no longer pull protein from exhausted glands because there is none left, nor take calcium from broken down bone tissue.

In this stage, the body has shifted to another strategy to get the immediate energy it needs.  This is accomplished by diverting every bit of food for use as immediate energy.  Normally, a portion of food is used immediately, while the rest goes into a number of building and storing processed.  Among these are the maintenance of the immune system; routine repair work; and the routine storage of energy for future use.  During this stage of the stress response, none of these normal and important activates can take place because the body, having depleted all its reserves, has nowhere to turn for energy except the food that is eats.  Once Stage Two becomes chronic, the body becomes completely exhausted and passes into a Stage Three state of acute stress response.  At this point, the mind-body is extremely depleted and deficient.  This is a state of extreme exhaustion that can sometimes lead to death.