Stress throughout the Lifespan - Coursework Example

Stress throughout the Lifespan No: Stress throughout the Lifespan Stress throughout the lifespanis dangerous for healthy survival of human beings. Scientists and researchers have analyzed the impact of lifetime stress from the prenatal age till old age. This analysis resulted in extraction of facts related to adverse issues created because of chronic stress. Stress that becomes chronic and extended throughout the lifespan disrupts the brain’s structure and functionality resulting in impairment to the brain and welcomes many diseases to the body. People face different stressors in different stages of life and in all the different stages, we have to perform certain developmental tasks. In case of not completing specific developmental tasks, there are negative consequences for people. The lifespan can be divided into ‘infancy’, ‘early childhood’, ‘school age’, ‘adolescence’, ‘early adulthood’, ‘young adulthood’, ‘mid life’, ‘later maturity’, and ‘old age’. From prenatal age, human beings start undergoing stressful situations due to which, their cortisol levels get elevated resulting in death of certain brain cells. This death of cells brings disadvantageous results for the individual as he develops certain cognitive and mental disabilities. Later on, children start being defensive against stress by learning to cope up with stressful situations (Chen & Kottler, 2012). Different stages of lifespan offer different kinds of stressors for people with whom they fight in order to make themselves safe. In coping up with different kinds of stress during the lifetime, children gaining maturity by entering adolescence try to cope up with stress through the usage of drugs and alcoholism that is again damaging for their health. It is impossible for a human being to get never stressed or face different stressors. We have to undergo stressing situations on daily basis even before our birth. Some amount of stress is essential for our life continuity as it enables children to develop the capabilities to accept new and possible risky situations and to cope up with them throughout their lives. Children require assistance of parents and elders in order to handle stress physically as well as emotionally (Middlebrooks & Audage, 2008). However, when stress becomes severe or insidious, the advantageousness of acceptable amount of stress gets lost. Prolonged and chronic stress has short term as well as long term health hazards. The growth of brain, nervous system and the immunity system, all get dysfunctional because stress throughout the lifespan. The stress that gets started affecting the brain since childhood can lead to issues like “alcoholism, depression, eating disorders, heart disease, cancer, and other chronic diseases” (Middlebrooks & Audage, 2008, p. 3). The brain circuits and hormone systems that get started in our infancy have the capability to deal with stress. With feeling a threat, a child’s brain starts releasing hormones that can travel all through the body. The chronic or prolonged stress can impact the brain and its functionality in a number of ways. The linkage between brain circuits can be impaired because of toxic stress resulting in development of smaller brain. A child’s brain is more susceptible to chronic stress because brain circuits get developed at a very early stage and toxic stress is capable of disturbing the growth of these circuits. This can lead to development of reduced threshold for stress making the brain excessively responsive to negative experiences all over the lifespan. Hormones like cortisol have the eligibility to impair the body’s immune system resulting in making the body susceptible to insidious and continued health issues. Persistent elevated intensity of cortisol can impair learning and memory functions of the brain by injuring hippocampus. Afterwards, these impairments continue in different phases of life (Middlebrooks & Audage, 2008). Stress affects the brain’s functionality to a great extent. According to Lupien, et al (2009), “stress triggers the activation of the hypothalamus pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, culminating in the production of glucocorticoids by the adrenals” (p. 434). These glucocorticoids are quite crucial in terms of understanding brain’s functionality because they are released by various brain regions. They are responsible for sluggish development of brain during stress conditions, which can eventually result in reduced brain volume during maturity. Therefore, stress is quite influential in amending the ‘developmental trajectory’ of brain especially during the early phases of life (Lupien, et al, 2009, p. 441). This modification of brain’s developmental trajectory results in long term negative outcomes. The most sluggish development of the brain’s regions throughout the lifespan is depicted by amygdala. The hippocampus and the frontal lobe have reduced development because of chronic stress, but amygdala gets augmented in volume because of insidious stress. Amygdala performs a major role in the recognition of fright and danger and with increased volume, it’s threatening and alarming affects get improved. However, this more alarming situation has long term negative effects on the health of the individual (Lupien, et al, 2009). Some threats and alarming situations are just imaginary or the outcome of negative thought processes and all these also affect the development of amygdala, which eventually result in dysfunction of brain. Stress has varied effects on different stages of life and the linkage of stress with the lifespan of an individual cannot be denied. Because of behavioural stress, neurons get less competent with age and they exist in prefrontal cortex due to which, its functionality and structure get affected negatively (Soares, et al., 2014). Various parts of brain get affected because of stress throughout the lifespan. Therefore, the production of glucocorticoids, modification of brain’s developmental trajectory and the augmented volume of amygdala because of chronic stress result in the dysfunction of brain. Stress to a limited extent is natural to human beings, but when it becomes chronic, it has long-term effects on human mental and physical health. According to Lupien, et al (2005), the continuous activation of HPA axis because of chronic stress results in health hazards to the individuals and these health hazards can be disturbed insulin levels, increased blood pressure, diabetes, hypertension and diseases of arteries. In addition to these health hazards, development functions and tissue repairing is harmed along with weakened immunity system resulting in making the individual susceptible to various kinds of infections and diseases (Lupien, et al, 2005). When a person undergoes chronic or extended stress, the regulatory system that controls stress becomes altered. With elevated levels of stress in one’s life, the brain’s responsiveness to stress becomes affected especially the nervous system gets affected negatively. This eventually has an impact on the heart rate and blood pressure. The regulatory system controlling stress has a certain amount of resilience, but with continued and uncontrollable stress, the resilience gets lost (Taylor, et al., 2004). Stress that gets started at a very early age is much more damaging for proper functioning of the brain. The brain’s management of stress gets disrupted if a person undergoes stress in the early family environment. A stressful family environment influences threat recognition, responsiveness to threat, response of amygdala and the functionality of prefrontal cortex. The brain’s processing of being alarmed by the stress gets much more active because of chronic stress resulting in bad health conditions. The coping of stress throughout the lifespan also gets affected with early stressful environment and people who undergo such stress are bad at coping up with stress late in lives. Their reaction to potential threats and stressors gets negatively affected. They can ignore potential threats and can react excessively to certain stressors (Taylor, et al., 2004). In totality, it can be said that their handling of stress becomes impaired and they are unsuccessful in coping with different stressors or stressful situations. Prolonged or chronic stress is damaging for the brain’s proper functionality and weakens the immune system due to which, body becomes less defensive against various diseases. We have to manage stress through all our lives as we meet with diverse stressors specific to different phases of life. However, these stressors should be of limited nature and our brain should be able to regulate the stress management accordingly. Stress that is controllable is advantageous for us as we learn to identity various threats and act accordingly, but when stress becomes chronic and insidious, the development of brain, working of immune system and our nervous system show dysfunction. At a younger age, we are more susceptible to chronic stress because our brain circuits get developed very early at age. In case of feeling threatened, the brain starts releasing hormones and elevated quantity of these hormones as a result of chronic stress can impair brain’s functionality and structure. When we face a stressor, HPA axis in our brain gets activated resulting in production of glucocorticoids. Production of glucocorticoids, increase in amygdala, and change in developmental trajectory of brain have negative affects for the brain’s working. When a person undergoes chronic stress at an early age, his brain’s resilience, stress regulatory system, immune system and responsiveness to threat, all get affected negatively due to which, he cannot cope up with stress successfully lately in age. Therefore, people should ensure better living environments for their children and should help in enabling their children to cope up with different stress through their lifespan. References Chen, D. D., & Kottler, J. A. (2012). Stress Management and Prevention: Applications to Daily Life. Routledge. Lupien, S. J., Fiocco, A., Wan, N., Maheu, F., Lord, C., Schramek, T., & Tu, M. T. (2005). Stress hormones and human memory function across the lifespan. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 30(3), 225-242. Lupien, S. J., McEwen, B. S., Gunnar, M. R., & Heim, C. (2009). Effects of stress throughout the lifespan on the brain, behaviour and cognition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(6), 434-445. Middlebrooks, J. S., & Audage, N. C. (2008). The effects of childhood stress on health across the lifespan. Soares, J. M., Marques, P., Magalhães, R., Santos, N. C., & Sousa, N. (2014). Brain structure across the lifespan: the influence of stress and mood. Frontiers in aging neuroscience, 6. Taylor, S. E., Lerner, J. S., Sage, R. M., Lehman, B. J., & Seeman, T. E.  (2004).  Early environment, emotions, responses to stress, and health.  Special Issue on Personality and Health.  Journal of Personality, 72, 1365-1393. Read More