General Adaptation Syndrome

Hans Selye was a young medical doctor who noticed that a lot of people were experiencing similar types of symptoms but did not have any physical cause for the problems. Over time, he came to realize that the problems were caused by stress. He later determined that the body has a natural, adaptive response to stress that is composed of three stages: alarm, resistance, exhaustion. When a person gets to the exhaustion stage, they may experience severe physical problems.