What is the Alarm Reaction?

The alarm reaction takes place during the first stage of stress. Your body’s warning system activates and starts to mobilize all of it’s resources against the stressor. During this time the hypothalamus will trigger an emergency response in your hormonal system. This results in a flood of steroidal hormones into your bloodstream. At the same time your hypothalamus transmits a series of emergency messages throughout the sympathetic division of your automatic nervous system to the internal organs, arousing the body for action. This could be a reasonable explanation for the reports of people lifting vehicles and other massive objects during emergency situations.

If a stressful situation lasts for more than a week, this alarm, which is intended to be an adaptive reaction can become distress. This has also been linked to causing high blood pressure, bleeding ulcers, fatty deposits in the blood vessels, deterioration of the immune systems, and a host of other harmful symptoms.

In addition these harmful reactions to stressful situation can also make a person an easy target for many other diseases. Studies have also shown that long term and untreated stress could actually produce abnormal changes in the brain which could result in the person having suffering from depression..

Studies have also proven that damage can be caused from stress hormones and that this can also render neuron unable to regenerate. In the event that stress persists but is not strong enough to actually overwhelm a person during the beginning stages, a person will then begin what is called the rebound stage, better known as the stage of resistance.