What are the physiological stages of the human body response to stress?

The human body basically goes through three main phases when it hits a wall of stress. First off, there's the alarm stage, which is that classic fight-or-flight moment. Your brain sends a signal to your adrenals, and suddenly you've got a massive spike of adrenaline and cortisol pumping through your veins. It's that heart-racing, pupils-dilating feeling where you're ready to either run for your life or deal with whatever's stressing you out right that second.

If that stress just keeps hanging around, the body moves into the resistance phase. This is where your system tries to play it cool and balance things out, but it's working overtime. You might feel like you're handling it, but honestly, your resources are being burned up pretty fast. I see this a lot with people who are chronically overworked; they think they're fine, but they're basically running on fumes and their immune system starts taking a hit without them even realizing it.

Finally, there's the exhaustion stage, and that's the one you really want to avoid. At this point, your body just runs out of gas. You've spent so much energy trying to resist the stress that you're left completely drained, and that's when you start seeing real health problems pop up, like burnout, extreme fatigue, or getting sick constantly. It's super important to listen to your body before you hit that wall, because recovering from the exhaustion phase is a much slower process than just taking a break when you first feel the pressure.