Stress and Health: A Review of Psychobiological Processes
Affiliations.
- 1 School of Psychology, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom; email: [email protected].
- 2 Department of Psychological Science, School of Social Ecology, University of California, Irvine, California 92697, USA; email: [email protected].
- 3 Division of Primary Care, School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2UH, United Kingdom; email: [email protected].
- PMID: 32886587
- DOI: 10.1146/annurev-psych-062520-122331
The cumulative science linking stress to negative health outcomes is vast. Stress can affect health directly, through autonomic and neuroendocrine responses, but also indirectly, through changes in health behaviors. In this review, we present a brief overview of ( a ) why we should be interested in stress in the context of health; ( b ) the stress response and allostatic load; ( c ) some of the key biological mechanisms through which stress impacts health, such as by influencing hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis regulation and cortisol dynamics, the autonomic nervous system, and gene expression; and ( d ) evidence of the clinical relevance of stress, exemplified through the risk of infectious diseases. The studies reviewed in this article confirm that stress has an impact on multiple biological systems. Future work ought to consider further the importance of early-life adversity and continue to explore how different biological systems interact in the context of stress and health processes.
Keywords: HPA axis; allostatic load; autonomic nervous system; cortisol; genomics.
Publication types
- Autonomic Nervous System / metabolism
- Hydrocortisone / metabolism
- Hypothalamo-Hypophyseal System / metabolism
- Pituitary-Adrenal System / metabolism
- Stress, Psychological / metabolism*
- Hydrocortisone