Title: Your Health and Grief
Headings: Your Health and Grief
Your Health and Grief
How we Physically React to Stress
Taking Preventative Measures to Ward Off Health Concerns

Content: How we Physically React to Stress
Bodies of all human beings (and animals alike) react to stress in basically the same manner. In 1944 Hans Selye a neurophysiologist formulated the three phases of stress reactions but it is only recently that scientists can identify with considerable accuracy what actually takes place. According to Selye the reaction to stress happens in three phases but for our purpose we will only discuss phase one. The first phase or the “alarm reaction” occurs immediately on contact with the stressor (grief at the death of our child). At the death the brain “translates” the stress of grief into a chemical reaction in the body. The pituitary gland located at the base of the brain is stimulated to produce a hormone called adrenocorticotrophin hormone (ACTH). This reaction is a “protective” one and in essence makes the body ready to do battle. The ACTH (from the pituitary gland) then travels to the adrenal gland, a gland at the top of the kidneys, which causes a chemical reaction which ultimately produces cortisone. As the cortisone level increases it causes the production of ACTH to level off. What happens in the case of grief where the stress continues for many months?