The General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) is a descriptive model developed by Hans Selye, that clarifies some of the physiological responses that occur in human beings and all mammals, when confronted with stressors of any type. It was Selye’s work that initiated an understanding of the destructive aspects of stress that have now become so widely discussed. Selye’s experiments and developed model focus particularly on the hypothalamic / anterior pituitary / adrenal axis, which regulates primary hormonal responses to stress.
This hormonal aspect of the organism’s response to circumstances that require an adaptive response, is part of what Recheweg described as “The Greater Defense System”, which includes:
1. mechanisms of hypothalamic, pituitary and adrenal responses,
2. the reticulo-endothelial system (humoral defenses, toxin storage, anitbody formation),
3. neural reflexes,
4. liver detoxification pathways, and
5. connective-tissue detoxification of the extracellular matrix.
What is Stress?
Stress implies the existence of a challenge impacting an organism that requires adaptive changes in order to respond to this challenge most effectively. These changes are always occurring, and constitute the regulatory activity of any dynamic living system. Stress may be acute, or ongoing. From this point of view, life itself is a constant state of stress that necesitates adaptive responses. An organism in homeostasis is changing constantly within limits that are supportive of continued healthy life. Unblocked homeostatic regulation maintains optimal physiological and psychological response changes. When stress levels result in movement outside of limits that are supportive of health, with sufficient intensity and duration, mal-adaptation and disease occur. This is dys-stress, and the beginning of regulatory disturbance. Dys-stress beyond certain levels results in a system that can no longer appropriately regulate various functions within “design parameters”. A state of dysregulation may occur initially in only one or several body/mind sub-systems, but over time with continuing dys-stress, the system will inevitably become increasingly dysregulated, and eventually, non-regulated and degenerative. From the cybernetic point of view, this is the cause for the epidemic, and ever-escalating levels of mental, emotional, and physical breakdown that we witness in modern society.
Healthful Stress
Levels of stress that are within acceptable limits may have the effect of exercising and strengthening the organism, and are termed “eustress”. The practice of many forms of physical, emotional, and mental exercise and therapy may even be experienced as acutely “stressful”, but nonetheless have a positive and often healing effect on the organism, and enhance its ability to adapt to other stressors.
Types of Stressors
Stressors that require an adaptive, regulatory response, and which may result in mal-adapative dysregulation and breakdown if continued excessively, are of many types: changes in temperature, excess or deficient nutrients, physical and emotional pain, unresolvable conflicts, excess or deficient activity, inadequate rest, infections, negative self-talk, distorted patterns of breathing and postural alignment, mal-illumination, geopathic and electromagnetic fields, toxins, and allergens.
The GAS Stages
The General Adaptation Syndrome describes one aspect of the physiological response to such stressors. A basic model of the GAS is of inestimable value in understanding the pathology occurring daily in a vast majority of the population. The GAS can be simply divided into three stages:
Stage 1 ALARM REACTION / ACUTE REACTIVITY acute symptoms
Stage 2 RESISTANCE / CHRONIC ADAPTATION & MAL-ADAPTATION chronic & masked symptoms
ADDICTION suppression of symptoms by compulsive dosing
Stage 3 STRESS EXHAUSTION acute & chronic symptoms
GAS Stage1: Alarm Reaction / Acute Reactivity.
Here the organism is responding to an acute stressor that is only occasional, and not continuous. The adrenal and other responses prepare the system for “flight or fight”, or otherwise stimulate the ability to resist a real or perceived mental, emotional, or metabolic assault. The symptoms that arise are immediate, or occur within hours of the stress. The connection of alarm reaction symptoms to their cause from the stressor, is often obvious to the individual. Stage 1 reactions to substances are what people usually associate with “having an allergy reaction”.
A person in an alarm reaction will often experience stimulated or yang symptoms, such as: increased heart rate and/or blood pressure, sweating unrelated to exercise, dry mouth, acute nervousness, anxiety or irritability, headache, accelerated mucous production, sneezing, gastrointestinal distress, diarrhea, vomiting, loss of appetite, dizziness, etc. There is an increase in sympathetic autonomic responses of the nervous system.
GAS Stage 2: RESISTANCE / CHRONIC ADAPTATION & MAL-ADAPTATION.
When the stressor(s) persists beyond a few days, the system must alter its physiological responses to resist an assault that is continuing to drain limited reserves. In the acute phase, the immediate symptoms that occur with obvious cause-effect clarity following challenge from the stressor(s) now lessen or cease. Instead, chronic symptoms arise that reflect the now constant drain on system reserves, which can not fully resolve the effects of the dys-stressful challenge(s). The system is now adapting to, or compensating for, the effects of the stress.
If this regulatory crisis continues long enough, the ability of the system to maintain effective adaptation / compensation will be partially exhausted, and a stage of mal-adaptation, or decompensation, develops. This is the beginning of blocked regulation.
For example, an infant drinking her first cow’s milk who is allergic to the milk, may produce diarrhea within the next few hours. This is an alarm reaction, reflecting an appropriate physiological response to what for that child is a toxin in the gastrointestinal tract. However, if that infant is now forced to continue drinking cow’s milk everyday (a common occurrence), the diarrhea will eventually cease, or be prevented from occurring by drugs. The reactive state is still present, and the symptoms now become chronic: the diarrhea may be replaced with other more serious symptoms that reflect a deeper pathology, such as asthma, skin rashes, learning disabilities, constipation, and many others. While the obvious connection between the infant’s reaction and drinking of cow’s milk might have been initially clear in the alarm reaction, it ceases to be clear in the adapted and mal-adapted stages, at least to a mind ignorant of the underlying physiological dynamics.
GAS Stage 2: REACTIVE MASKING.
When an individual has developed stage 2 chronic adaptation and mal-adaptation, acute symptoms with an often obvious cause-effect relationship in time to exposure, have given way to chronic symptoms that usually do not occur in any obvious cause-effect response to that stressor. In stage 2, symptoms may even occur in a more confusing manner. Immediately following the exposure, the individual may experience no symptoms, or even a temporary stimulation, and lessening of symptoms. For this reason, reactivity to toxins in stage 2 is said to be “masked”. Once chronic adaptation develops, avoidance of the food or toxin for 1 – 2 weeks is often necessary before stage 1 alarm reactions return. Once acute reactivity returns, the adaptive masking will disappear, and symptoms will tend to occur shortly after exposure.
A Further Development of GAS Stage 2: ADDICTION.
In many cases of stage 2 chronic mal-adaptation to a particular stressor, the individual may become addicted to that stressor. This is often associated with deepening adrenal fatigue. Stressors that result in addiction may be bio-chemical, such as foods, drugs, and environmental chemicals; or behavioral, including any activities that stimulate increased adrenal output for a particular person.
The following addictive patterns are seen:
For example, consider reactive addiction to food. The same principles apply to other substance addictions as well. All food addiction begins with reactivity to a food that is consumed frequently enough, so that chronic mal-adaptation has developed. Eating a particular food even 2 – 3 times per week may be sufficient to develop and maintain addiction. Since the vast majority of persons in modern society consume substances such as wheat, dairy, sugar, coffee, corn, yeast, etc. multiple times daily, it is not difficult to understand why large numbers of people also suffer the effects of reactive addiction.
CRAVING. The food will be craved, although the craving may be completely unconscious. Some persons will consume an addictive food many times in a day, without considering it something they particularly care about (wheat is a prime example), while others may recognize clearly that they “need”, “love”, “crave”, or “can’t live without” a food addictant (coffee and sugar are common examples). Any of the physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral patterns associated with recreational and medicinal drug addiction may also be present in an individual who is food addicted.
WITHDRAWAL SYNDROME. If the reactive addictive food is not consumed on an adequate schedule, then acute symptoms may begin, as a result of detoxification. These include any type of physical, mental, or emotional symptoms, and often involve cravings, headaches, skin rashes, fatigue, irritability, depression, anxiety, mucous conditions, diarrhea, constipation, gastrointestinal tract distress, brain fog, arthralgias, myalgias, “colds,” “flus”, etc. Everyone does not experience noticeable symptoms during withdrawal from addictive foods, though many do.
DETOXIFICIATION FOLLOWING AVOIDANCE. The onset of symptoms following avoidance of the addictive food stressor is due, at least in part, to the body’s tendency to begin eliminating the offending substance, once its further intake ceases. If the food is avoided long enough so that it can largely clear the blood and gastrointestinal tract, the detox symptoms will cease, and the individual will return to stage 1 alarm reaction when the food is again consumed. In other words, after detox, eating the reactive addictive food may now result in noticeable acute symptoms within a few minutes to a few hours following ingestion, even though previous daily consumption of the food may have never resulted in observable acute symptoms. Detox from foods generally lasts less than one week, and no more than 2 weeks. With coffee, detox may even last several weeks, with fatigue and headache being the most common symptoms.
Once reactive masking has been unmasked following avoidance, hypersensitivity reactions may occur. Even minisucle doses of the reactive food may cause mild to severe, or even debilitating symptoms that leave a “hangover” for several days; and this may occur with a food that was previously eaten many times daily while never resulting in an immediate noticeable symptom.
DOSING EFFECTS. As with drugs, the desired effect of the consumption of addictive foods may decrease over time, often leading to an increase in frequency and/or amount of consumption. In addition, other addictive substances (both foods and drugs) may be used in an attempt to increase the temporary relief that the addictive food is no longer able to adequately supply. The desired effects of addictive food, whether recognized or not, include stimulation, though often very short-lived. In addition, maintenance of an adequate addictive dosing schedule prevents stronger detox from occurring, with its attendant acute and unpleasant symptoms. The temporary stimulation occurs because the food itself is acting as a toxin, and further ingestion “whips the tired horse” to get up and run some more, when it otherwise would not. Prevention or minimizing of detox through further ingestion, occurs by the same principle as taking “a hair of the dog that bit you” to feel better when hung over.
For example, the real physiological beginnings of later alcoholism often occur many years before the first drink, with addiction to foods such as sugar, wheat and yeast. Alcoholic drinks containing food fractions of an addictive food are able to raise blood levels of that reactive food very rapidly. For this reason, an already food-addicted individual may find an alcoholic drink containing the unconsciously sought-after reactive food very effective in providing the temporary lift that any food addict is driven to seek, when making many of his/her dietary choices.
Abstinent alcoholics often consume larger quantities of wheat, yeast, sugar, caffeine, and nicotine, than they did before abstinence from alcohol. One reason for this is that the underlying food, caffeine and nicotine addictions are still active, and the elimination of temporary addictive satisfaction via alcohol results in an unconscious pattern of increased addictive intake through substances that are still being ingested. While this is far better than continued use of alcohol, it does not result in an end to addictive physiology and psychology, with its inevitable cravings, and perpetual feelings of dissatisfaction. True healing of drug addictions is impossible without elimination of primary underlying food and other addictive chemical reactivities.
GAS Stage 3: STRESS EXHAUSTION.
Continued chronic mal-adaptation must always result in varying degrees of stress exhaustion, because the mal-adaptation is a state of continual drain on energetic, hormonal, nutrient, and other limited reserves used to maintain the best response possible to ever-present stressor(s). When enough of such reserves being mobilized in stage 2 are temporarily or permanently exhausted, then acute symptoms will occur in addition to the already-present chronic ones. With an addictive food, this may mean that acute symptoms will now occasionally or always occur after ingestion, though this had not been occurring until the system became stress exhausted.
In stress exhaustion, some system regulatory functions are breaking down completely, at least temporarily. This is a deeper expression of blocked regulation. The dysregulation of stage 2 chronic mal-adaptation occurs within sub-systems that are still capable of responding, however inadequate, pathological, or uncomfortable those responses may be. In stage 3, increasing inability to respond, termed “rigid regulation” or “non-regulation”, is occurring. First-line defensive body systems that are meant to initially respond to the stressor, may be exhausted and at least temporarily inactive. Recruitment of other body/mind sub-systems not designed to most effectively deal with that type of stressor may become activated, causing further symptoms.
In the case of stress exhaustion to a food, some acute symptoms result from the system’s attempts to eliminate the reactive food as quickly as possible, since the body is no longer able to even poorly adapt to that food-toxin at its present level, as it had been doing in stage 2 chronic mal-adaptation. Such symptoms of stress exhaustion arise from an increased activation of secondary elimination channels, such as the gastrointestinal tract, respiratory mucous membranes, and skin. In addition, acute symptoms occur because of direct toxic effects on sensitive and often chronically inflamed target tissues; and arise from a failure of elimination channels to prevent increased spillover of toxins into circulation, beyond the chronically mal-adapted level.
The majority of persons living in modern culture constantly shift back and forth between stages 2 and 3 on various cycles. For example, many individuals have a daily cycle of beginning the day after a night’s sleep, during which the system began to replenish some of its exhausted reserves from the previous day. Starting the day deeply into stage 2 addiction, however, they begin at breakfast to eat and drink so as to re-stimulate themselves with reactive substances, and prevent withdrawal. As this process of having constant “fixes” throughout the day continues, it may take much more of the addictants later in the day to feel a level of stimulation that is weaker and more short-lived, than what they were able to experience temporarily after the morning “fix”.
This is the result of increasing stress exhaustion, leaving ever-decreasing resources to mobilize as the day goes on. By evening, the person may be feeling worse, using more and stronger foods and/or drugs in an attempt to change their state, with decreasing success. Then the process starts all over the next day.
After a week of this, many go through a deeper state of stress exhaustion by Friday, and recover a bit more on the weekend. “Recover”, however, means simply shifting from deeper and more system-pervasive stage 3 exhaustion back into deep stage 2 reactive addiction; coupled with less extreme stress exhaustion, though still with inevitable suffering and dysfunction.
Another common pattern is the individual who is unable to eat for several hours after rising. This is often the result of entering a sufficiently “sickening” detoxification state during the night, as a result of the previous day’s addictive foods, drugs, and environmental chemicals. Several hours may be necessary to recover enough from the acute detox before appetite returns. For others, breakfast may consist only of a drug “fix”, such as sugar, wheat, yeast, caffeine, and/or nicotine.
THE GAS AND SURVIVAL MECHANISMS
A healthy body and mind will have stage 1 acute reactions, when exposure occurs to a toxic chemical or reactive food. This occurs with intact and unblocked regulatory mechanisms. If the exposure is very low, the symptoms will be mild. As the extent of the exposure increases, the intensity of the reaction will also increase. For example, a healthy person walking into a room that has recently been sprayed with many commonly used pesticides may initially sneeze, feel pressure in the head, become nauseated, find the odor unpleasant, or feel that “something just isn’t right”. As the exposure level rises in the body, the symptoms will become stronger, and may result in vomiting, diarrhea, severe headache, blurred vision, inability to think clearly, fear, itching skin, pounding heart, and sweating.
The symptoms occur because of physiological changes that are meant to increase the elimination ability of the body, so as to reduce the toxic load that is rising in the blood, and causing toxic disruption of normal metabolic processes. In addition, the symptoms are an alarm that alerts the individual consciously to the presence of a threat that should be dealt with as quickly as possible, and avoided in the future. In this case, the only appropriate response to the threat is to leave the room and breathe unpoisoned air.
If the individual happens to live in a house that is regularly sprayed with pesticides, and is now in varying degrees of stage 2 and 3 reactivity with regards to the chemicals, no such alarm reactions occur. In fact, much of the poison that is ingested daily will simply accumulate ever more deeply in the basic regulatory system and cells, causing increasing dysfunction and degeneration. Such a person may notice nothing acute, even when the load is much higher following a spraying, and there is no conscious awareness of the chronic poisoning that is taking place. Some persons may even find the odor pleasant or reassuring, if also addicted to the poison. This may occur for many years, until deeper stress exhaustion results in the same person now noticing that they feel worse than usual after a spraying, and the smell is unpleasant or overwhelming.
It is obvious that the person who no longer reacts acutely when exposed to toxic insults has lost the functioning of a primary regulatory survival mechanism. This is the condition of vast numbers of people, and is a clear indication that degeneration is already taking place.
The return of stage 1 alarm reactions will inevitably occur during any true healing process. This is essential. For a person whose health is improving, knowledge of why this occurs is important. Otherwise, this increasing “sensitivity” is frequently viewed as “wimpiness”, an inability to live in the world, or a worsening of the condition. Non-reactivity to toxic stressors such as chemicals and junk food, is socially encouraged in our addictive, consumer culture; and having acute or chronic reactions to such stressors often makes one an object of derision. Accusations of hypochondria, hysteria, weak-mindedness, and suggestibility may result when actual healing has moved an individual from a state of anergy (no energy with which to react) into a state of allergy (excessive and dysregulated reactivity). Such a mistaken perspective is frequently reinforced by friends, family and co-workers, who do not themselves react acutely because of their own serious and unrecognized states of compromised health.
In the first months and years of healing, hypersensitivity reactions are common. This occurs as the result of movement from rigid regulation to hyper-reactivity, because of a toxic system. Some degree and frequency of hypersensitivity reactions inevitably occur when an increasingly non-reactive and degenerated system is again beginning to respond to acute toxic assaults, as well as to the elimination of toxic accumulation that has accumulated over years. Such responses may well be excessive, disturbing, and poorly tuned to overall optimal regulation. Well-chosen treatments and support can reduce the discomfort and duration of this phase considerably. However, a highly non-regulating system will always move into varying degrees of dysregulation, on its way to a state of unblocked and optimal regulation.
The use of drugs, or other treatments that reduce the unpleasantness of such hyper-responsiveness by suppressing the now-returning, though excessive and inefficient physiological functioning, will prevent further healing, and may result in significant advancement of the underlying degenerative processes. Most drugs exert their symptom-reducing effects by preventing normal physiological responses, through the interruption of normal cell enzyme function. It is for this reason that drug treatments worsen the disease process, whatever their symptomatic success. The use of drainage remedies and drainage therapies, on the other hand, may rapidly reduce uncomfortable symptoms and move the system toward enhanced elimination and improved regulatory function.
As the total toxic load decreases, and some degree of regeneration occurs, hypersensitivity reactions decrease in frequency, intensity and duration. The degree of reactivity of the system will then increasingly reflect the actual severity of an acute assault. This signals return to a more appropriately regulated stage 1 GAS. As healing progresses over time in a particular tissue, there may be a decrease in hypersensitivity reactions over-all, or only to specific stressors, or not at all. This cannot be predicted in advance, and will vary for each person.
Frequent or continuous exposure to moderately pathogenic stressors is incompatible with healing. Common stressors that prevent movement from blocked regulation back to unblocked regulation and acute reactivity, include regularly consumed reactive foods, living or working in an environment contaminated with pesticides, sleeping or working in an electromagnetic or geopathicly stressed area, and the use of toxic personal care and laundry products.
On the other hand, the elimination of major reactive foods, along with an adequate and relatively balanced macronutrient intake, is often the single most symptom reducing intervention that is made, resulting in 2 - 3 weeks in significant subjective improvement. Without this change as a foundation, other therapies will inevitably be compromised in their toleration and effectiveness.
However, recognition of the real meaning of such improvement is important. Elimination of reactive foods often results in dramatic symptom reduction, because a major source of powerful and continuous toxic-reactive burdening has been removed. The rapidity of such symptom reduction reflects clearing of this reactive stress, at least from the blood and gastrointestinal tract. Until cleared from the blood, all tissues are continuously bathed with the reactive substance, thus maintaining regulatory disturbance; and triggering multiple symptoms, as numerous target tissues are pathologically affected. However, this type of initial improvement is also superficial, though absolutely essential for further healing.
Appropriate dietary change, and the elimination of other primary chronic toxic stresses, is necessary before deeper tissue detoxification and regeneration can occur, but it will not result in this deeper healing by itself. The assortment and virulence of damaging toxic and other stresses that to which individuals in modern culture have been continuously subjected from conception are enormous, and are mostly unknown to the individual. Good nutrition alone is necessary, though completely inadequate to accomplish the task, given the times in which we live. Dietary systems that claim otherwise are based in ignorance, and often cultishness. The same is true of claims for nutritional products said to be therapeutic for everyone, forever.
If the goal for a “normally healthy person” is simple restoration of unblocked regulatory function at a deep level, this necessitates effective, tolerated and adequately monitored therapies, as well as dietary and lifestyle changes. Unfortunately, the statistically indisputable option to such intentional healing choices is increasing dysfunction, decreasing quality of life, accelerated and pathological aging, and degenerative illness. If clinically observable degeneration has already occurred, the process requires more carefully monitored and varied changes and interventions, over a longer time frame.
This hormonal aspect of the organism’s response to circumstances that require an adaptive response, is part of what Recheweg described as “The Greater Defense System”, which includes:
1. mechanisms of hypothalamic, pituitary and adrenal responses,
2. the reticulo-endothelial system (humoral defenses, toxin storage, anitbody formation),
3. neural reflexes,
4. liver detoxification pathways, and
5. connective-tissue detoxification of the extracellular matrix.
What is Stress?
Stress implies the existence of a challenge impacting an organism that requires adaptive changes in order to respond to this challenge most effectively. These changes are always occurring, and constitute the regulatory activity of any dynamic living system. Stress may be acute, or ongoing. From this point of view, life itself is a constant state of stress that necesitates adaptive responses. An organism in homeostasis is changing constantly within limits that are supportive of continued healthy life. Unblocked homeostatic regulation maintains optimal physiological and psychological response changes. When stress levels result in movement outside of limits that are supportive of health, with sufficient intensity and duration, mal-adaptation and disease occur. This is dys-stress, and the beginning of regulatory disturbance. Dys-stress beyond certain levels results in a system that can no longer appropriately regulate various functions within “design parameters”. A state of dysregulation may occur initially in only one or several body/mind sub-systems, but over time with continuing dys-stress, the system will inevitably become increasingly dysregulated, and eventually, non-regulated and degenerative. From the cybernetic point of view, this is the cause for the epidemic, and ever-escalating levels of mental, emotional, and physical breakdown that we witness in modern society.
Healthful Stress
Levels of stress that are within acceptable limits may have the effect of exercising and strengthening the organism, and are termed “eustress”. The practice of many forms of physical, emotional, and mental exercise and therapy may even be experienced as acutely “stressful”, but nonetheless have a positive and often healing effect on the organism, and enhance its ability to adapt to other stressors.
Types of Stressors
Stressors that require an adaptive, regulatory response, and which may result in mal-adapative dysregulation and breakdown if continued excessively, are of many types: changes in temperature, excess or deficient nutrients, physical and emotional pain, unresolvable conflicts, excess or deficient activity, inadequate rest, infections, negative self-talk, distorted patterns of breathing and postural alignment, mal-illumination, geopathic and electromagnetic fields, toxins, and allergens.
The GAS Stages
The General Adaptation Syndrome describes one aspect of the physiological response to such stressors. A basic model of the GAS is of inestimable value in understanding the pathology occurring daily in a vast majority of the population. The GAS can be simply divided into three stages:
Stage 1 ALARM REACTION / ACUTE REACTIVITY acute symptoms
Stage 2 RESISTANCE / CHRONIC ADAPTATION & MAL-ADAPTATION chronic & masked symptoms
ADDICTION suppression of symptoms by compulsive dosing
Stage 3 STRESS EXHAUSTION acute & chronic symptoms
GAS Stage1: Alarm Reaction / Acute Reactivity.
Here the organism is responding to an acute stressor that is only occasional, and not continuous. The adrenal and other responses prepare the system for “flight or fight”, or otherwise stimulate the ability to resist a real or perceived mental, emotional, or metabolic assault. The symptoms that arise are immediate, or occur within hours of the stress. The connection of alarm reaction symptoms to their cause from the stressor, is often obvious to the individual. Stage 1 reactions to substances are what people usually associate with “having an allergy reaction”.
A person in an alarm reaction will often experience stimulated or yang symptoms, such as: increased heart rate and/or blood pressure, sweating unrelated to exercise, dry mouth, acute nervousness, anxiety or irritability, headache, accelerated mucous production, sneezing, gastrointestinal distress, diarrhea, vomiting, loss of appetite, dizziness, etc. There is an increase in sympathetic autonomic responses of the nervous system.
GAS Stage 2: RESISTANCE / CHRONIC ADAPTATION & MAL-ADAPTATION.
When the stressor(s) persists beyond a few days, the system must alter its physiological responses to resist an assault that is continuing to drain limited reserves. In the acute phase, the immediate symptoms that occur with obvious cause-effect clarity following challenge from the stressor(s) now lessen or cease. Instead, chronic symptoms arise that reflect the now constant drain on system reserves, which can not fully resolve the effects of the dys-stressful challenge(s). The system is now adapting to, or compensating for, the effects of the stress.
If this regulatory crisis continues long enough, the ability of the system to maintain effective adaptation / compensation will be partially exhausted, and a stage of mal-adaptation, or decompensation, develops. This is the beginning of blocked regulation.
For example, an infant drinking her first cow’s milk who is allergic to the milk, may produce diarrhea within the next few hours. This is an alarm reaction, reflecting an appropriate physiological response to what for that child is a toxin in the gastrointestinal tract. However, if that infant is now forced to continue drinking cow’s milk everyday (a common occurrence), the diarrhea will eventually cease, or be prevented from occurring by drugs. The reactive state is still present, and the symptoms now become chronic: the diarrhea may be replaced with other more serious symptoms that reflect a deeper pathology, such as asthma, skin rashes, learning disabilities, constipation, and many others. While the obvious connection between the infant’s reaction and drinking of cow’s milk might have been initially clear in the alarm reaction, it ceases to be clear in the adapted and mal-adapted stages, at least to a mind ignorant of the underlying physiological dynamics.
GAS Stage 2: REACTIVE MASKING.
When an individual has developed stage 2 chronic adaptation and mal-adaptation, acute symptoms with an often obvious cause-effect relationship in time to exposure, have given way to chronic symptoms that usually do not occur in any obvious cause-effect response to that stressor. In stage 2, symptoms may even occur in a more confusing manner. Immediately following the exposure, the individual may experience no symptoms, or even a temporary stimulation, and lessening of symptoms. For this reason, reactivity to toxins in stage 2 is said to be “masked”. Once chronic adaptation develops, avoidance of the food or toxin for 1 – 2 weeks is often necessary before stage 1 alarm reactions return. Once acute reactivity returns, the adaptive masking will disappear, and symptoms will tend to occur shortly after exposure.
A Further Development of GAS Stage 2: ADDICTION.
In many cases of stage 2 chronic mal-adaptation to a particular stressor, the individual may become addicted to that stressor. This is often associated with deepening adrenal fatigue. Stressors that result in addiction may be bio-chemical, such as foods, drugs, and environmental chemicals; or behavioral, including any activities that stimulate increased adrenal output for a particular person.
The following addictive patterns are seen:
- craving
- withdrawal syndrome
- detox following avoidance
- dosing effects
For example, consider reactive addiction to food. The same principles apply to other substance addictions as well. All food addiction begins with reactivity to a food that is consumed frequently enough, so that chronic mal-adaptation has developed. Eating a particular food even 2 – 3 times per week may be sufficient to develop and maintain addiction. Since the vast majority of persons in modern society consume substances such as wheat, dairy, sugar, coffee, corn, yeast, etc. multiple times daily, it is not difficult to understand why large numbers of people also suffer the effects of reactive addiction.
CRAVING. The food will be craved, although the craving may be completely unconscious. Some persons will consume an addictive food many times in a day, without considering it something they particularly care about (wheat is a prime example), while others may recognize clearly that they “need”, “love”, “crave”, or “can’t live without” a food addictant (coffee and sugar are common examples). Any of the physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral patterns associated with recreational and medicinal drug addiction may also be present in an individual who is food addicted.
WITHDRAWAL SYNDROME. If the reactive addictive food is not consumed on an adequate schedule, then acute symptoms may begin, as a result of detoxification. These include any type of physical, mental, or emotional symptoms, and often involve cravings, headaches, skin rashes, fatigue, irritability, depression, anxiety, mucous conditions, diarrhea, constipation, gastrointestinal tract distress, brain fog, arthralgias, myalgias, “colds,” “flus”, etc. Everyone does not experience noticeable symptoms during withdrawal from addictive foods, though many do.
DETOXIFICIATION FOLLOWING AVOIDANCE. The onset of symptoms following avoidance of the addictive food stressor is due, at least in part, to the body’s tendency to begin eliminating the offending substance, once its further intake ceases. If the food is avoided long enough so that it can largely clear the blood and gastrointestinal tract, the detox symptoms will cease, and the individual will return to stage 1 alarm reaction when the food is again consumed. In other words, after detox, eating the reactive addictive food may now result in noticeable acute symptoms within a few minutes to a few hours following ingestion, even though previous daily consumption of the food may have never resulted in observable acute symptoms. Detox from foods generally lasts less than one week, and no more than 2 weeks. With coffee, detox may even last several weeks, with fatigue and headache being the most common symptoms.
Once reactive masking has been unmasked following avoidance, hypersensitivity reactions may occur. Even minisucle doses of the reactive food may cause mild to severe, or even debilitating symptoms that leave a “hangover” for several days; and this may occur with a food that was previously eaten many times daily while never resulting in an immediate noticeable symptom.
DOSING EFFECTS. As with drugs, the desired effect of the consumption of addictive foods may decrease over time, often leading to an increase in frequency and/or amount of consumption. In addition, other addictive substances (both foods and drugs) may be used in an attempt to increase the temporary relief that the addictive food is no longer able to adequately supply. The desired effects of addictive food, whether recognized or not, include stimulation, though often very short-lived. In addition, maintenance of an adequate addictive dosing schedule prevents stronger detox from occurring, with its attendant acute and unpleasant symptoms. The temporary stimulation occurs because the food itself is acting as a toxin, and further ingestion “whips the tired horse” to get up and run some more, when it otherwise would not. Prevention or minimizing of detox through further ingestion, occurs by the same principle as taking “a hair of the dog that bit you” to feel better when hung over.
For example, the real physiological beginnings of later alcoholism often occur many years before the first drink, with addiction to foods such as sugar, wheat and yeast. Alcoholic drinks containing food fractions of an addictive food are able to raise blood levels of that reactive food very rapidly. For this reason, an already food-addicted individual may find an alcoholic drink containing the unconsciously sought-after reactive food very effective in providing the temporary lift that any food addict is driven to seek, when making many of his/her dietary choices.
Abstinent alcoholics often consume larger quantities of wheat, yeast, sugar, caffeine, and nicotine, than they did before abstinence from alcohol. One reason for this is that the underlying food, caffeine and nicotine addictions are still active, and the elimination of temporary addictive satisfaction via alcohol results in an unconscious pattern of increased addictive intake through substances that are still being ingested. While this is far better than continued use of alcohol, it does not result in an end to addictive physiology and psychology, with its inevitable cravings, and perpetual feelings of dissatisfaction. True healing of drug addictions is impossible without elimination of primary underlying food and other addictive chemical reactivities.
GAS Stage 3: STRESS EXHAUSTION.
Continued chronic mal-adaptation must always result in varying degrees of stress exhaustion, because the mal-adaptation is a state of continual drain on energetic, hormonal, nutrient, and other limited reserves used to maintain the best response possible to ever-present stressor(s). When enough of such reserves being mobilized in stage 2 are temporarily or permanently exhausted, then acute symptoms will occur in addition to the already-present chronic ones. With an addictive food, this may mean that acute symptoms will now occasionally or always occur after ingestion, though this had not been occurring until the system became stress exhausted.
In stress exhaustion, some system regulatory functions are breaking down completely, at least temporarily. This is a deeper expression of blocked regulation. The dysregulation of stage 2 chronic mal-adaptation occurs within sub-systems that are still capable of responding, however inadequate, pathological, or uncomfortable those responses may be. In stage 3, increasing inability to respond, termed “rigid regulation” or “non-regulation”, is occurring. First-line defensive body systems that are meant to initially respond to the stressor, may be exhausted and at least temporarily inactive. Recruitment of other body/mind sub-systems not designed to most effectively deal with that type of stressor may become activated, causing further symptoms.
In the case of stress exhaustion to a food, some acute symptoms result from the system’s attempts to eliminate the reactive food as quickly as possible, since the body is no longer able to even poorly adapt to that food-toxin at its present level, as it had been doing in stage 2 chronic mal-adaptation. Such symptoms of stress exhaustion arise from an increased activation of secondary elimination channels, such as the gastrointestinal tract, respiratory mucous membranes, and skin. In addition, acute symptoms occur because of direct toxic effects on sensitive and often chronically inflamed target tissues; and arise from a failure of elimination channels to prevent increased spillover of toxins into circulation, beyond the chronically mal-adapted level.
The majority of persons living in modern culture constantly shift back and forth between stages 2 and 3 on various cycles. For example, many individuals have a daily cycle of beginning the day after a night’s sleep, during which the system began to replenish some of its exhausted reserves from the previous day. Starting the day deeply into stage 2 addiction, however, they begin at breakfast to eat and drink so as to re-stimulate themselves with reactive substances, and prevent withdrawal. As this process of having constant “fixes” throughout the day continues, it may take much more of the addictants later in the day to feel a level of stimulation that is weaker and more short-lived, than what they were able to experience temporarily after the morning “fix”.
This is the result of increasing stress exhaustion, leaving ever-decreasing resources to mobilize as the day goes on. By evening, the person may be feeling worse, using more and stronger foods and/or drugs in an attempt to change their state, with decreasing success. Then the process starts all over the next day.
After a week of this, many go through a deeper state of stress exhaustion by Friday, and recover a bit more on the weekend. “Recover”, however, means simply shifting from deeper and more system-pervasive stage 3 exhaustion back into deep stage 2 reactive addiction; coupled with less extreme stress exhaustion, though still with inevitable suffering and dysfunction.
Another common pattern is the individual who is unable to eat for several hours after rising. This is often the result of entering a sufficiently “sickening” detoxification state during the night, as a result of the previous day’s addictive foods, drugs, and environmental chemicals. Several hours may be necessary to recover enough from the acute detox before appetite returns. For others, breakfast may consist only of a drug “fix”, such as sugar, wheat, yeast, caffeine, and/or nicotine.
THE GAS AND SURVIVAL MECHANISMS
A healthy body and mind will have stage 1 acute reactions, when exposure occurs to a toxic chemical or reactive food. This occurs with intact and unblocked regulatory mechanisms. If the exposure is very low, the symptoms will be mild. As the extent of the exposure increases, the intensity of the reaction will also increase. For example, a healthy person walking into a room that has recently been sprayed with many commonly used pesticides may initially sneeze, feel pressure in the head, become nauseated, find the odor unpleasant, or feel that “something just isn’t right”. As the exposure level rises in the body, the symptoms will become stronger, and may result in vomiting, diarrhea, severe headache, blurred vision, inability to think clearly, fear, itching skin, pounding heart, and sweating.
The symptoms occur because of physiological changes that are meant to increase the elimination ability of the body, so as to reduce the toxic load that is rising in the blood, and causing toxic disruption of normal metabolic processes. In addition, the symptoms are an alarm that alerts the individual consciously to the presence of a threat that should be dealt with as quickly as possible, and avoided in the future. In this case, the only appropriate response to the threat is to leave the room and breathe unpoisoned air.
If the individual happens to live in a house that is regularly sprayed with pesticides, and is now in varying degrees of stage 2 and 3 reactivity with regards to the chemicals, no such alarm reactions occur. In fact, much of the poison that is ingested daily will simply accumulate ever more deeply in the basic regulatory system and cells, causing increasing dysfunction and degeneration. Such a person may notice nothing acute, even when the load is much higher following a spraying, and there is no conscious awareness of the chronic poisoning that is taking place. Some persons may even find the odor pleasant or reassuring, if also addicted to the poison. This may occur for many years, until deeper stress exhaustion results in the same person now noticing that they feel worse than usual after a spraying, and the smell is unpleasant or overwhelming.
It is obvious that the person who no longer reacts acutely when exposed to toxic insults has lost the functioning of a primary regulatory survival mechanism. This is the condition of vast numbers of people, and is a clear indication that degeneration is already taking place.
The return of stage 1 alarm reactions will inevitably occur during any true healing process. This is essential. For a person whose health is improving, knowledge of why this occurs is important. Otherwise, this increasing “sensitivity” is frequently viewed as “wimpiness”, an inability to live in the world, or a worsening of the condition. Non-reactivity to toxic stressors such as chemicals and junk food, is socially encouraged in our addictive, consumer culture; and having acute or chronic reactions to such stressors often makes one an object of derision. Accusations of hypochondria, hysteria, weak-mindedness, and suggestibility may result when actual healing has moved an individual from a state of anergy (no energy with which to react) into a state of allergy (excessive and dysregulated reactivity). Such a mistaken perspective is frequently reinforced by friends, family and co-workers, who do not themselves react acutely because of their own serious and unrecognized states of compromised health.
In the first months and years of healing, hypersensitivity reactions are common. This occurs as the result of movement from rigid regulation to hyper-reactivity, because of a toxic system. Some degree and frequency of hypersensitivity reactions inevitably occur when an increasingly non-reactive and degenerated system is again beginning to respond to acute toxic assaults, as well as to the elimination of toxic accumulation that has accumulated over years. Such responses may well be excessive, disturbing, and poorly tuned to overall optimal regulation. Well-chosen treatments and support can reduce the discomfort and duration of this phase considerably. However, a highly non-regulating system will always move into varying degrees of dysregulation, on its way to a state of unblocked and optimal regulation.
The use of drugs, or other treatments that reduce the unpleasantness of such hyper-responsiveness by suppressing the now-returning, though excessive and inefficient physiological functioning, will prevent further healing, and may result in significant advancement of the underlying degenerative processes. Most drugs exert their symptom-reducing effects by preventing normal physiological responses, through the interruption of normal cell enzyme function. It is for this reason that drug treatments worsen the disease process, whatever their symptomatic success. The use of drainage remedies and drainage therapies, on the other hand, may rapidly reduce uncomfortable symptoms and move the system toward enhanced elimination and improved regulatory function.
As the total toxic load decreases, and some degree of regeneration occurs, hypersensitivity reactions decrease in frequency, intensity and duration. The degree of reactivity of the system will then increasingly reflect the actual severity of an acute assault. This signals return to a more appropriately regulated stage 1 GAS. As healing progresses over time in a particular tissue, there may be a decrease in hypersensitivity reactions over-all, or only to specific stressors, or not at all. This cannot be predicted in advance, and will vary for each person.
Frequent or continuous exposure to moderately pathogenic stressors is incompatible with healing. Common stressors that prevent movement from blocked regulation back to unblocked regulation and acute reactivity, include regularly consumed reactive foods, living or working in an environment contaminated with pesticides, sleeping or working in an electromagnetic or geopathicly stressed area, and the use of toxic personal care and laundry products.
On the other hand, the elimination of major reactive foods, along with an adequate and relatively balanced macronutrient intake, is often the single most symptom reducing intervention that is made, resulting in 2 - 3 weeks in significant subjective improvement. Without this change as a foundation, other therapies will inevitably be compromised in their toleration and effectiveness.
However, recognition of the real meaning of such improvement is important. Elimination of reactive foods often results in dramatic symptom reduction, because a major source of powerful and continuous toxic-reactive burdening has been removed. The rapidity of such symptom reduction reflects clearing of this reactive stress, at least from the blood and gastrointestinal tract. Until cleared from the blood, all tissues are continuously bathed with the reactive substance, thus maintaining regulatory disturbance; and triggering multiple symptoms, as numerous target tissues are pathologically affected. However, this type of initial improvement is also superficial, though absolutely essential for further healing.
Appropriate dietary change, and the elimination of other primary chronic toxic stresses, is necessary before deeper tissue detoxification and regeneration can occur, but it will not result in this deeper healing by itself. The assortment and virulence of damaging toxic and other stresses that to which individuals in modern culture have been continuously subjected from conception are enormous, and are mostly unknown to the individual. Good nutrition alone is necessary, though completely inadequate to accomplish the task, given the times in which we live. Dietary systems that claim otherwise are based in ignorance, and often cultishness. The same is true of claims for nutritional products said to be therapeutic for everyone, forever.
If the goal for a “normally healthy person” is simple restoration of unblocked regulatory function at a deep level, this necessitates effective, tolerated and adequately monitored therapies, as well as dietary and lifestyle changes. Unfortunately, the statistically indisputable option to such intentional healing choices is increasing dysfunction, decreasing quality of life, accelerated and pathological aging, and degenerative illness. If clinically observable degeneration has already occurred, the process requires more carefully monitored and varied changes and interventions, over a longer time frame.
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