Stressed or stressed out: what is the difference?

By Bruce S. McEwen. Journal of Psychiatry & Neuroscience, 2005

624 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The term "allostasis" has been coined to clarify ambiguities associated with the word "stress". Allostasis refers to the adaptive processes that maintain homeostasis through the production of mediators such as adrenalin, cortisol and other chemical messengers. These mediators of the stress response promote adaptation in the aftermath of acute stress, but they also contribute to allostatic overload, the wear and tear on the body and brain that result from being "stressed out". This conceptual framework has created a need to know how to improve the efficiency of the adaptive response to stressors while minimizing overactivity of the same systems, since such overactivity results in many of the common diseases of modern life. This framework has also helped to demystify the biology of stress by emphasizing the protective as well as the damaging effects of the body's attempts to cope with the challenges known as stressors.

Subfields: Behavioral Neuroscience, Endocrine and Autonomic Systems, Physiology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/90fe0e6e6580253457e8d52a474e48e393ced87e

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In Behavioral Neuroscience

1. O. Almeida
2. N. Barnes
3. Nuno J. Sousa
4. D. Wood
5. Marian F. Earls
6. João J. Cerqueira
7. T. Jay
8. B. Siegel

Citations in the corpus

• The Lifelong Effects of Early Childhood Adversity and Toxic Stress (2012, background): “In addition to short-term changes in observable behavior, toxic stress in young children can lead to less outwardly visible yet permanent changes in brain structure and function.(39,46) The plasticity of the fetal, infant, and early childhood brain makes it particularly sensitive to chemical influen”
• Ultra Short Term Analysis of Heart Rate Variability for Monitoring Mental Stress in Mobile Settings (2007, background): “The concept of allostasis has been introduced to explain how adaptive processes maintain stability or homeostasis through the production of mediators such as stress hormone, neurotransmitter, and cytokines [7].”
• The Prefrontal Cortex as a Key Target of the Maladaptive Response to Stress (2007, background): “, 2005); however, when the intensity or duration of stressors exceeds a certain individualspecific threshold, activation of the stress response can be deleterious (McEwen, 2005).”
• Race, race-based discrimination, and health outcomes among African Americans. (2007, background): “Allostasis, on the other hand, is the process of the body’s response to those challenges (McEwen 1998, 2004, 2005; McEwen & Stellar 1993).”
• Behavioral effects of auditory stimulation on kenneled dogs (2012, background): “Stress in animals has both short-term and long-term effects on health and life span (McEwen, 2005).”