Stress is something we all deal with in our everyday lives. Some people have a lot of stress, while others have very little. It all depends on what your life is like and how you handle stress. Though we have stress in our day to day lives, many are unaware of the health risks and long term problems that follow stress. Stress is defined as, “the process by which we perceive and respond to certain events (Myers).” Stress can come from anywhere, whether it be a job, family, friends, school, finances, the loss of a loved one, etc. Depending on the stress level, there are various effects as to the harm your stress may be causing you.
Chronic Stress
Stress has been known to cause long term problems. Reoccurring stress …show more content…
The nervous system is constructed of several divisions; the central division and the peripheral nervous system. The central nervous system includes the brain and the spinal cord, including various centers that join the sensory and motor information in the body. These centers are separated into low centers that carry out crucial body and organ control functions and higher center within the brain that control more information processing. The peripheral nervous system is subdivided into two nerves, the autonomic system, and the somatic system. These nerves are made up of bundles of axons and found outside of the brain and spinal cord. Sensory nerves of the peripheral system contain sensory receptors that detect changes within the internal and external environment. Symptoms of stress on the nervous system includes; headaches, heart burn, depression, loss of sleep, aches and pains, and immune system response. One study gives insight to electrophysiological and the enduring effects of early life stress on the brain. “Increasing evidence links exposure to stress early in life to long-term alterations in brain function, which in turn have been linked to a range of psychiatric and neurological disorders in humans. Electrophysiological approaches to studying these causal pathways have been relatively underexploited. Effects of early life stress on neuronal electrophysiological properties offer a set of potential mechanisms for these susceptibilities, notably in the case of epilepsy. Thus, we review experimental evidence for altered cellular and circuit electrophysiology resulting from exposure to early life stress.” Most of the work conducted in this study focused on limbi long term increase of strength of nerve impulses. “The existing literature, although small, provides strong evidence that early life stress induces enduring, often robust effects on a range of electrophysiological properties, suggesting further