General Adaptation Syndrome

1. General Adaptation Syndrome • Any creature put under major stress for long periods of time will eventually collapse. Translated, this term refers to “the overall (general) process by which the creature adjusts (adapts) to various levels of stress.” • The word syndrome means a set of symptoms or signs. • This syndrome assumes that the same pattern is followed each time stress is heavy. • Three-part sequence of the general adaptation syndrome seems to occur frequently. • The first stage is called an alarm reaction. The body sends out emergency signals that stir it up in preparation for an attack – either psychological or physical. • Next, the stage of resistance occurs. This means that the organism tries to fight back against the attack. The organism wants to restore psychological and physical balance. If the threat is removed at this point, the body and psyche begin to restore themselves to their normal chemical and emotional balance. • If the stress doesn’t let up, continuous fighting becomes impossible. This third stage, exhaustion, means the battle is over, and we have lost, or at least have quit.

2. Example: Car Accident • When the limb is broken, the first response is one of panic or alarm and the body starts the heart beating rapidly, increases the breathing rate, and so on. • Next comes an attempt to see if the leg will move despite the pain, trying to offset it somehow to make it all go away (resistance). • Finally, when the pain is too much and the break is obvious, you give in and lie there helplessly. Note that this would be the case if the break happens around others. But if it occurs when you are alone, then the stage of resistance is seen very clearly because you struggle, fight and drag yourself toward help before you collapse.

3. Bad ways of dealing with stress • There are many ways of handling stress, conflict, and frustration – some reasonable, some disastrous. • Two will be looked at next: • Substance Abuse • Suicide

4. Substance Abuse • Misuse of drugs is formally called either substance abuse or chemical dependence. • Interesting Fact: Using drugs to alter consciousness is not just a human activity. Reindeer, cattle, and rabbits eat intoxicating mushrooms; tobacco plants are preferred by baboons; elephants in the wild seek out fermented grain such as would be found in beer. • There is some indication that stress is a factor in these behaviors because when elephants are restricted in the amount of space they have, they dramatically increase their consumption of the grain. • For humans, most scientists agree that stress, conflict, and frustration are major factors in drug use. The user is trying to alter the world enough to make it more tolerable. • Also important is peer pressure: some who get started on drugs do so because others are doing it and they don’t want to feel left out of the group.

5. How Drugs Work • Drugs all operate on the same general principle. If you look at the diagram below, you will see a nerve junction. • The brain has billions of nerve cells, connected one to another using these junctions. The space between the junctions helps keep different thoughts and feelings separate from one another. • If certain nerve cells have to connect in order to complete a feeling or thought, chemical messages are sent across the junction to the next nerve and then, if needed, on to the next nerve and so forth until the whole thought or feeling is complete. • So, at the end of each nerve cell, there are chemicals that either send a message across or block one from crossing the junction.

6. Drugs have a molecular structure that physically resembles the different chemicals already in the nerve cells. • Hence, when we take in a drug, it lodges in the endings of specific nerve cells designed to receive certain types of chemical molecules. • The body will do what these drug molecules say because it thinks they are coming from inside, not outside. • For instance, alcohol and tranquilizers have a structure similar to the chemicals that tell the nerve cells not to fire. When these drugs arrive in the brain, they hook onto certain nerve cells endings and give a message to stop firing. As more and more cells are stopped, the person becomes slower, more dazed, and eventually can lose consciousness. • Drugs that speed up the body are molecular similar to the nerve cells of chemicals that make the cells fire. If a person takes in greater quantities of these drugs, more and more cells begin to fire, and the person becomes more and more agitated. • A third kind of drug causes its effect because normally the nerve cells are designed to keep different parts of the brain separate – hearing, seeing, smelling, etc. • Drugs like LSD lodge in different systems of the brain and cause the circuits in more than one of these areas to start firing together. • As a result, people who take such drugs feel like they are “hearing colors” and “seeing sounds” and often wind up in a world so strange that it is terrifying.

7. Alcohol Chemical Effects • Some believe that alcohol is a stimulant. • However, it actually removes a person’s inhibitions about making a fool of himself or herself. • This creates an impression of freedom. • Alcohol is really a depressant, which is why country and western songs have so many drinkers crying in their beer. • As the amount of alcohol in the body increases, more and more cells are shut off. Eventually this leads to unconsciousness. • Alcohol is absorbed by the body in two to six hours, depending on how much is taken in, how much the person weights, and to some extent, how food has also been eaten. • Eating prior to or during drinking helps reduce the effects. Physical Effects • Repeated heavy drinking causes serious damage, but it takes a while to show up. • About 10% of alcoholics develop permanent liver damage, and about the same percentage develop irreversible brain damage. • Alcohol over time can directly destroy the liver. • Alcohol is basically a food product: it fills you up and is high in calories but very low in nutrients. • So as people continue drinking over time, they gradually reduce their regular food intake, causing a vitamin loss. Vitamin loss is one of the few things that directly and permanent damages the brain cells.

8. Alcohol = Bad • Alcohol Withdrawal Delirium = causes weakness, anxiety, and severe stomach cramps, terrifying hallucinations, progresses from confusion to disorientation, to stupor, and often to death.   • The Synergistic Effect= when two drugs are present in the liver, each of them increases in its potency, because it cannot handle two chemicals of slightly different structure at the same time. People run a notable risk when they take both barbiturates, or tranquilizers and alcohol at the same time.

9. Causes of Alcoholism • There is no known “cause.” • Might be inherited but still may • be an environmental origin. For example if one’s parents and other relatives are alcoholic, then the chances are good that the offspring will be also. Learned vs. genetic • Importance of social factors = Orthodox Jewish people have almost a zero rate of alcoholism.

10. Nightline from ABC News: Teen Girls and Binge Drinking • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ean7tuXlYJ4&feature=related

11. Marijuana • Psychedelic drug, which means it distorts or confuses the user’s perception of the world. • Especially notable effects are that time seems to stretch out longer than usual; the person becomes sleep and has a floating feeling. • While alcohol causes more problems with coordination and makes people more aggressive than marijuana, it still is not safe to drive a car while taking this drug. • When experienced pilots took marijuana and then were studied in flight simulators, they made all kinds of serious errors. • The most serious effect of marijuana is on the memory system. People have short- and long-term memories. Everything we learn must first go into the short-term system and then be transferred to the long-term, permanent storage. • While the drug does not affect long-term memory, it does wipe out the short-term storage for a few hours after being taken, so newly learned material is never transferred and hence not retained.

12. Your Brain on Drugs: Marijuana • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeF6rFN9org

13. Amphetamines • Very dangerous. • They create a feeling of excitement, freedom, and energy, but they also create a heavy tolerance in the user. • Tolerance refers to the fact that if at first the person takes, say, one table, then two tablets will soon be needed to produce the same effect, then three, and so on. Hence, tolerance means that the body adapts to each higher dosage. • In a short time, the user is taking a dosage hundreds of timesgreater than the original one to get the same effect. • Heavy dosages result in bizarre mental images, trembling, convulsions, and notable paranoia, the belief that others are out to get you. • Such drugs should never be used for weight loss but they are. They do a poor job, and tolerance builds up quickly. • Continued use to stay aware for studying backfires too, not only because of the buildup of tolerance, but also because of the temporary memory loss that begins to occur.

14. Cocaine • Cocaine, which comes from coca leaves, is also a stimulant producing many of the same sensations as amphetamines. The first soda fountains in the 1800s in the U.S. served soda pop that contained cocaine. Among the brand names were Koca Nola, Nerve Ola, Wise Ola, and believe it or not, Dope. The best known, of course, is Coca-Cola, which originally contained alcohol as well. • These drinks were quite a success, as you might have guessed, until some of the dangers of cocaine were noted, and the drug was made illegal. Today’s Coca-Cola uses caffeine to provide stimulation. • Snorting is the most popular way to take this drug. It creates a warm “rush,” which radiates through the body for about ten minutes. • Cocaine in any form leads to severe hallucinations, mental confusion, and paranoia after a time. Crack is very dangerous because it a highly purified form of cocaine with great potency. It is cocaine in paste form, normally smoked, which means that within a very brief time it is absorbed by the lungs and quickly enters the brain through the blood, causing an intense “high.” • Cocaine produces a very strong psychological dependence, which means that although the body doesn’t demand it, the user wants it so much that life becomes empty and intolerable without it. • Most people who use cocaine do not die from it. • Nonetheless, it can cause an instant heart attack and death in young and apparently health people who are using only an average dose. • The exact cause of the heart spasms is not clear, and there is no way to know beforehand who or when it will kill.

15. Opiates • Heroin, morphine, and opium are all opiates – that is, sedatives – that dramatically depress nerve operation in the brain. • At first, they make people feel very good and on top of the world, but suddenly the person comes crashing down into a deep depression. • Opiates not only cause psychological dependence and create a drug tolerance but they also cause physical dependence, which means that the body itself, not just the psyche, begins to crave the drug. • Most people are killed by these drugs from the additives put into them and from unsterile equipment. These drugs can make those addicted to them so desperate that some have been known to cut open a vein in order to pour the drug in if they can’t find a syringe. LSD • LSD is a very potential psychedelic drug called an hallucinogen because it produces major hallucinations. • Doses as small as 1/250,000th of an ounce can cause marked changes in behavior. It makes the brain cells from different areas fire at random, and mixes the senses, as we discussed earlier. • Most of the danger from this drug comes from panic by users who can’t cope with the sensations, often running around or mutilating themselves.

16. Drug use: 20 things you might not know animation • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHyDviIkHB4 The Faces of Drug Addiction • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR0rneaFego

17. Steroids • Steroids are artificially made male sex hormones that are used by many athletes, mostly male but also a few females. • Since the (normal) male sex hormone helps build muscles, these people are hoping to increase their body size and strength with the drug. • While this works, many users experience severe problems. They lose control of their emotions, often going way up and then way down. • They begin to feel an unrealistic sense of power. • For example, some have though they could jump out of a window, three or four stories high without hurting themselves (they couldn’t). • One deliberately drove a car into a tree at 40 miles an hour while his friend made a video of the scene. • The symptoms usually end when intake of the drug is stopped, but while on it, the individual is quite unpredictable.

18. Paducah Tilghman - Prescription Drug Abuse Awareness 60-second PSA • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ln6FF9Gid9k

19. Suicide • Roughly 13 people per 100,000 kill themselves every year. Approximately double that number, try to commit suicide. • Among those age 25 to 64 years, roughly 16 per 100,000 kill themselves; for ages 65 to 74, about 20 per 100,000 commit suicide; for those 75 to 84, the figure jumps to 25 per 100,000. • More males than females actually kill themselves, while females attempt it more often. • The reason for this difference seems to be that males don’t consider it “manly” to use methods such as taking drugs or inhaling carbon monoxide from the car exhaust. • Hence, they have less of a chance of being rescued. Males most often use a gun; females most often take drugs.

20. Common Stresses • Loss of important friends • Substance abuse • Serious conflicts within the family • Severe trouble at school or work. • Usually added to these specific problems is a feeling that everything is meaningless and hopeless and that there is no point in trying to make things better. Teenage Suicide • The suicide rate for people ages 15 to 19 is about 12 per 100,000. • This rate stays roughly the same year after year, varying only a fraction of a percentage point. • So, the number of suicides for this age group is not as high as the others, but each one of these suicides causes pain and anguish for their families. • DON’T EVER DO IT!! Talk to someone ANYONE if you think about it