Selye

Selye 's General Adaptation Syndrome

Hans Selye is the proponent of one of the earliest theories linking stress and illness together via endocrine processes . Selye believes that any perceived threat would elicit a certain response from the body 's system of defenses . Selye 's general adaptation syndrome illustrates the processes that the body undergoes when faced with some sort of noxious stimulus , and when adaptation is long-drawn-out , the adaptation may lead to disease

With Selye 's theory , Selye proposed three stages to occur : the alarm reaction , stage of resistance , and stage

of exhaustion (Friedman , 2002 br

. 35 . With these stages , one would undergo a process of stimulation would choose the fight response , and if the challenge persists exhaustion along with depression and illness comes about . Selye argued that a wide variety of diseases could come about with prolonged defense against certain noxious stimuli

As for the type of disease to develop with prolonged defense , it varies from person to person . Usually , the case of diathesis applies , wherein diathesis is one 's genetic predisposition to disease (Friedman , 2002 ,

br 36 . However , though Selye stresses that prolonged defense with struggling against a noxious stimulus develops an illness , his model did not explicitly show how the said defense does so . What Selye did show was how adrenal-cortical hormones play an important role in his theory

Selye made use of an experiment wherein he repeatedly pulled test rats tails . Upon , sacrificing them and studying them , Selye found that the rats ' adrenal glands we affected...