PSY 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Pituitary Gland, Cortisol

• School: Tunxis Community College
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 111
• Professor: O'brien

Document Summary

Stress refers to the physiological responses that occur when an organism fails to respond appropriately to emotional or physical threats. Posttraumatic stress disorder (ptsd) is a medical syndrome that includes symptoms of anxiety, sleeplessness, nightmares, and social withdrawal. General adaptation syndrome is the three distinct phases of physiological change that occur in response to long term stress: alarm, resistance, and exhaustion. The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (hpa axis) is a physiological response to stress involving interactions among the hypothalamus, the pituitary, and the adrenal glands. Cortisol is a stress hormone that releases sugars into the blood, helping preparing the body to respond to threat. Long term stress suppresses the immune system, contributes to depression, contributes to heart disease, and hypertension. Daily hassles are our everyday interactions with the environment that are essentially negative. The fight-or-flight response is an emotional and behavioral reaction to stress that increases the readiness for action.