Jason has been overwhelmed this semester. He has fallen behind in all of his classes and, after two weeks of cramming and getting very little sleep, he has developed tension headaches. In addition, he has trouble eating. What stage of the general adaptation syndrome is Jason experiencing?

Exhaustion

Explanation:

This question is missing its options. The options for this question are:

A) Alarm

B) Resistance

C) Exhaustion

D) Allostasis

The general adaptation stress model is a model that explains the changes the body goes through when we are facing stress.

The stages for this model are: alarm, resistance and exhaustion.

Alarm: Refers to the initial reaction to stress (generally known as the fight-or-flight response. Resistance: After this first shock response, your body starts adapting to the situation and starts going back to its normal state (specially if the stress situation continues, your body adapts to it). However, you experience symptoms like exhaustion or irritability. Exhaustion: This stage is reached after a period of long or chronic stress, the stress drains you and you're not able to cope with stress anymore. You feel fatigued, depressed and anxious and develop more physical symptoms.

In this example, Jason has had an overwhelmed semester and after two weeks of getting very little sleep, he has tension headaches and has trouble eating. We can see that he has experienced a period of long stress (a semester and two rough weeks) and he's developed physical and drained symptoms. Therefore, we can say that he is in the exhaustion stage of the general adaptation syndrome.