Stress
Stress is a state of increased alertness of the body. It is a psychological and physiological response to events that could threaten us. As we’ve evolved, the human stress response has saved our lives. The "fight-or-flight" stress response of the body involves a cascade of biological changes that prepare us for emergency action. Today, we turn on the same life-saving physical reaction to cope with intense, ongoing stressors - and we can’t seem to turn it off.
Stress is a trade-off for Self-Optimization. The body needs to react immediately to any danger, but it must also save valuable resources. Stress is an important trade-off between optimal resource usage and optimal response or reaction time. Stress means the context-depent short-term activation of all available resource, which are deactivated in the long term. As a trade-off in general systems stress can occur in various forms (readiness, alertness, preparedness, etc.), levels (severe, high, elevated, low, etc.) and phases (for example alert phase in a fire brigade, or the three emergency phases from the coast guard: uncertainty phase, alert phase, and distress phase).
Links
- Documentation: Stress - Portriat of a Killer
