PSY 1102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Adrenal Gland, Adrenal Cortex, Pituitary Gland

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 1102
• Professor: Najwa Haddad

Document Summary

Stress is the process of appraising and responding to a threatening or challenging event. It arises less of the events themselves, than from how we appraise them. Some short-lived stressors can have positive effects, mobilizing the immune system for fending off infections and healing wounds, or motivates us to conquer problems. Emotional or prolonged stress can harm us, can cause us severe or prolonged diseases of all sorts and can seriously affect our mental health. Stress response is the outpouring of stress hormones (epinephrine and norepinephrine) from the adrenal glands. When alerted by the brain pathways, the sympathetic nervous system increases heart rate and respiration, diverts blood from digestion to skeletal muscles, and dulls feelings of pain, releases sugar and fat from the body"s stores. This prepares the body for fight or flight, a term coined by cannon. Concluded that when faced with stress, we undergo gas (general adaptation syndrome)