Impacts of Environmental Stressors on Autonomic Nervous System

Abstract

Stress can be described as the perception of discomforts physically, psychologically, or physico-psychologically. During stress, the perceived discomfort indicates there is a deviation from homeostasis. In stress, there is a nonspecific physiological response to stressors, a group of stress-inducing phenomena. Stress-inducing phenomena can be defined as environmental insults, such as perturbed levels of light, temperature, chemicals, ambient oxygen, and noise. Response to stress occurs via the chemical messenger-mediated sympathetic nervous system including the autonomic-adrenal axis. Furthermore, the chemical messenger-mediated sympathetic nervous system determines nonhormonal effects which are often devised as general stress markers. Examples of general stress markers include changes in heart rate, heart rate variability, blood pressure, body temperature, blood glucose, baroreflex sensitivity, among others.