Final answer:
During stress or exercise, the body undergoes a full body response that prioritizes certain functions at the expense of others, like oxygen and nutrients to digestive organs. Chronic stress can lead to the body's stage of exhaustion with negative health effects, countered by hormones like cortisol. Maintaining overall health requires balancing diet, nutrition, rest, stress, and exercise.
Step-by-step explanation:
During a full body response to stress, certain parts of the body are put into overdrive, such as the cardiovascular system during the fight-or-flight response. This can be taxing on the body, depriving other parts of essential resources like oxygen and nutrients. The body diverts resources from less critical functions, such as the digestive system, to supply the muscles and brain with more energy and oxygen. This is a part of the body’s autonomic system function, where the sympathetic division ramps up bodily responses in reaction to stress or exercise, and the parasympathetic division calms the body down afterwards, restoring it to a state of homeostasis.
However, when stress continues over a longer term, such as with chronic illness or injury, the body can enter a stage of exhaustion. During this stage, there may be an array of negative effects, including depression, immune suppression, and severe fatigue, which can be mediated by hormones like cortisol. To counter long-term stress and energy demands, the body may utilize glucocorticoids to mobilize fat and protein reserves and stimulate gluconeogenesis, ensuring that the nervous system continues to have a supply of glucose.
Nevertheless, it's crucial for survival that the body maintains a balance in its physiological processes, including respiration, hydration, and nutrient intake. A wide range of environmental conditions can challenge this balance such as extreme temperatures, which the body can only handle to a certain extent. Therefore, factors such as diet, nutrition, rest, stress management, and exercise play vital roles in maintaining overall health and preventing the body from reaching dangerous levels of exhaustion.