What happens in your mind during stress?

zbeckabee

You're confronted with a potential threat, you need to be able to respond quickly, to move and to escape, and if you are wounded, to kick in the endorphins in order to let you cope with the pain or the stress of a particular injury. All these things are part of this collectivity of responses to the stress. In the case of adrenaline, your brain sends direct neural projections, neural cables, down your spinal chord into your adrenal and that triggers the release of adrenaline. In the case of cortisol, it's a more indirect route: your brain perceives something stressful, and within a second, sends a hormone to your pituitary, which within five seconds sends a hormone to your adrenals, and out comes cortisol. Endorphin is another one of the hormones released during stress, a relatively minor player that mostly plays that role in blocking pain perception. More information follows at: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/stories/s51013.htm Mar 13 08, 6:47 AM