Developing the concept of stress, G. Selye in 1938. proposed the concept of short-term and medium-term adaptation (adaptation of adults at times noticeably shorter than the lifetime), based on the concept of adaptive energy.

The concept of adaptive energy makes it possible to describe individual adaptive differences as differences in the distribution of adaptive energy according to the structural-functional scheme of the adaptation system (as well as in the amount of this energy). This scheme itself can be complex, but is uniform within a given species (for definiteness, Selye considers adults of the same sex). In a number of specific physiological experiments, Selye showed that the redistribution of this resource increases the resistance to some factors and at the same time reduces the resistance to others. The concept of adaptive energy has taken on an "axiomatic" form (the quotation marks mean that these axioms do not give true axiomatics in the mathematical sense):

1. Adaptive energy is available in a limited amount, given from birth.

2. There is an upper limit on the amount of adaptive energy that can be used by an individual at any moment of (discrete) time. This number can be concentrated in one direction or distributed among different directions of response to multiple calls. environment.

3. There is an exposure threshold external factor, which must be jumped to trigger an adaptive response.

4. Adaptive energy can be active at two different levels of competence: the primary level at which response generation occurs in response to high level factor, with high costs of adaptive energy and a secondary level, at which the response is generated at a low level of exposure, with low costs of adaptive energy.

In 1952, Goldstone offered a critique and development of Selye's theory. He supplements Selye's laboratory experiments with a description of typical clinical cases that confirm this picture. Goldstone argues that this description of adaptation in terms of adaptive energy is extremely useful. At the same time, he refutes the first axiom, according to which adaptive energy is available in a limited amount, given from birth.

Goldstone proposes the concept of permanent production of adaptive energy, which can also be accumulated and stored in a limited amount, and demonstrates that this concept even better describes Selye's experiments than the original idea of ​​permanent adaptation capital. He also uses the work of Carrel, who studied adaptation to stimuli below the anxiety threshold, and showed that such exercises non-specifically enhance (“awaken”) the general adaptive response, which contradicts Selye’s purely costly concept, the shortcomings of which he subsequently tried to overcome in his concept. eustress.

Goldstone argues that constantly arriving weak negative stimuli are constantly encountered and overcome by continuously acting adaptation. The initializing effect of incentives is to awaken the adaptation system and bring it into a state of readiness for a faster and more effective response. Stronger stimuli may require more adaptive energy to be expended than is produced; then the adaptive reserve is put to work, and if it is used up, then death occurs. There is a maximum possible rate of consumption of adaptive energy, and at this maximum the organism cannot cope with any additional stimulus. It is described how one stimulus can influence the individual's ability to adapt to other stimuli; outcome depends on specific situation:

1. A patient who cannot cope with an illness is able to overcome it after a moderate additional stimulus.

2. In the process of adapting to this new stimulus, he may acquire the ability to respond more intensely to all stimuli.

3. As a result of exposure to a strong stimulus, the patient may not be able to adapt to an additional strong stimulus.

4. If he successfully adapts to the disease, then this adaptation can be destroyed by the impact of a second strong stimulus.

5. For some diseases (in particular, diseases of adaptation), exposure to a fresh strong stimulus can defeat the disease. This impact is always associated with risk, but it can also normalize the functioning of the adaptation system.

Axiom Goldstone. Adaptation energy can be produced, although its production declines with old age, it can also be stored in the form of adaptation capital, although the capacity for this capital is limited. If an individual spends his adaptive energy faster than he produces, then he spends his adaptive capital and dies when it is completely depleted.

Modern models of adaptation and adaptive energy are based on the idea of ​​limiting factors (first proposed in 1828 by K. Spengler and gained fame in application to agrocenoses after the works of von Liebig, 1840) and evolutionary principles of optimality, leading from the works of J. B. S. Haldane. Adaptation is presented as an evolutionarily optimal system for distributing adaptive energy to neutralize the most harmful factors.

Developing the concept of stress, G. Selye in 1938 proposed the concept of short-term and medium-term adaptation (adaptation of adults at times much shorter than the lifetime), based on the concept of adaptive energy.

The concept of adaptive energy makes it possible to describe individual adaptive differences as differences in the distribution of adaptive energy according to the structural-functional scheme of the adaptation system (as well as in the amount of this energy). This scheme itself can be complex, but is uniform within a given species (for definiteness, Selye considers adults of the same sex). In a number of specific physiological experiments, Selye showed that the redistribution of this resource increases the resistance to some factors and at the same time reduces the resistance to others. Salier formulated the following statement:

Adaptive energy is available in a limited amount, given from birth.

From this statement he also deduced logical conclusions:

1. There is an upper limit on the amount of adaptive energy that can be used by an individual at any moment of (discrete) time. This amount can be concentrated in one direction or distributed among different directions of response to multiple environmental challenges.

2. There is a threshold of exposure to an external factor that must be crossed in order to cause an adaptive response.

3. Adaptive energy can be active at two different levels of competence: the primary level, at which the response is generated in response to a high level of the factor, with high costs of adaptive energy, and the secondary level, at which the response is generated at a low level of exposure, with low costs of adaptive energy.

It should be noted that Hans Salier had followers and, to some extent, critics.

In 1952, Selye's laboratory experiments described Goldstone's typical clinical cases, confirming this picture. Goldstone argues that this description of adaptation in terms of adaptive energy is extremely useful. At the same time, he refutes Salier's statement, according to which adaptive energy is available in a limited amount, given from birth.

Goldstone proposes the concept of permanent production of adaptive energy, which can also be accumulated and stored in a limited amount, and demonstrates that this concept even better describes Selye's experiments than the original idea of ​​permanent adaptation capital.

Goldstone argues that constantly arriving weak negative stimuli are constantly encountered and overcome by continuously acting adaptation. The initializing effect of incentives is to awaken the adaptation system and bring it into a state of readiness for a faster and more effective response. Stronger stimuli may require more adaptive energy to be expended than is produced; then the adaptive reserve is put to work, and if it is used up, then death occurs. There is a maximum possible rate of consumption of adaptive energy, and at this maximum the organism cannot cope with any additional stimulus. It is described how one stimulus can influence the individual's ability to adapt to other stimuli; The outcome depends on the specific situation:

1. A patient who cannot cope with an illness is able to overcome it after a moderate additional stimulus.

2. In the process of adapting to this new stimulus, he may acquire the ability to respond more intensely to all stimuli.

3. As a result of exposure to a strong stimulus, the patient may not be able to adapt to an additional strong stimulus.

4. If he successfully adapts to the disease, then this adaptation can be destroyed by the impact of a second strong stimulus.

5. For some diseases (in particular, diseases of adaptation), exposure to a fresh strong stimulus can defeat the disease. This impact is always associated with risk, but it can also normalize the functioning of the adaptation system.

Axiom Goldstone. Adaptation energy can be produced, although its production declines with old age, it can also be stored in the form of adaptation capital, although the capacity for this capital is limited. If an individual spends his adaptive energy faster than he produces, then he spends his adaptive capital and dies when it is completely depleted.

Almost any person lives in a certain country and city, which has its own customs, language, legislation, climate. If we are talking about adaptation, then something has changed. After all, the word "adaptation" is a synonym for the word "adaptation", and the need for it arises when a person's habitual living conditions change.

Therefore, the question about the types of adaptation is what exactly changes.

In human nature, there are the following types of adaptation:

• physiological;
• social;
• psychological;
• working (professional);
• anatomical.

Physiological adaptation is the process of responding to changes in external environmental conditions. These conditions can be understood as climate, technogenic factors and various human activities. It would be natural to assume that if the physiology changes, then this will entail other types of adaptation. The way it is. In addition to physiological adaptation - changes in the functioning of the body - anatomical adaptation will also pass.

Anatomical adaptation is the process of changing the structure of the body or the structure of its individual organs. That is, in the case nuclear explosion man will adapt to life on Earth. Only by what changes? This situation will pull other types of adaptation: psychological and work. Obviously, a person will need to change professional skills in order to perform their work in new conditions. Naturally, this will entail some psychological changes. Stress and depression will be clear evidence.

Psychological adaptation is a process of rethinking the fundamentals and other games of the mind. It is believed that if we compare all types of adaptation, then the psychological one will be the most unpredictable. This is explained simply - human brain explored to a small extent. In this regard, it is sometimes impossible to make a forecast. But often the meaning is not in the forecast, but in the possibility of survival. There are cases when, as a result of psychological pressure, the human body ceased to exist.

Working (professional) adaptation is the process of learning new skills. This was the result of the organization of people. Work adaptation is now of great importance in the organization of work. The ability of the entire team to work depends on how a new employee adapts to a new work team and masters work skills. That is why in our time this type of adaptation is given great importance.

Social adaptation It is a process of perception and adaptation in a new society. It's still the same new team, moving to another city or changing social status(getting a position, marriage, etc.). This type of adaptation is very important for the state, since all adopted laws entail the process of adaptation of society and in society. On this basis, a lot of different psychotrainings, courses and lectures appeared.

As you can see, all types of adaptation are quite closely related. It is impossible to go through the adaptation in something separately. Any change affects a complex of adaptations that can take place regardless of the person's awareness.

Adaptation regulators are:

• motives;
• skills and abilities;
• experience;
• knowledge;
• will;
• capabilities.

Thanks to adaptation, opportunities are created to accelerate the optimal functioning of the body, personality in an unusual environment.

Researchers distinguish three phases of adaptation.

First phase- the destruction of the old program of homeostasis (the body's ability to maintain the relative constancy of the internal environment (blood, lymph, intercellular fluid) and the stability of the main physiological functions (blood circulation, respiration, metabolism, etc.) within the limits that ensure its normal life activity). The desire of the system to reproduce itself, to restore the lost balance, to overcome the resistance of the external environment.

The old program is no longer functioning, and new programs have not yet been created or are not perfect. At this stage, temporary adaptation mechanisms are activated, allowing to “survive” the difficult period of the absence of an adequate regulatory program. The most important component of adaptation is behavioral adaptation. Behavioral reactions during this period have a protective function, minimizing the action of adaptogenic factors.

The second phase of the adaptation process- formation of a new program for the deployment of regulatory mechanisms and the construction of a new structure of homeostatic regulation.

The third phase of adaptation- the phase of stable adaptation, characterized by the stabilization of adaptation indicators, including performance parameters, which stop at a new, more optimal level.

IN modern world the impact of natural factors on humans is largely neutralized social factors. In new natural and industrial conditions, a person often experiences the influence of completely unusual, and sometimes harsh factors, to which, evolutionarily, she has no protective mechanisms.

The life of each person can be considered as a continuous adaptation, because our ability to adapt has certain limits. The same applies to the ability of a person to restore his physical and mental health. Adapting to adverse environmental conditions, the human body experiences a state of tension, fatigue. The duration of stress depends on the magnitude of the load, the degree of preparation of the body, its functional, structural and energy resources, but with prolonged exposure to extreme factors, the body's ability to function at a given level is lost, and fatigue sets in.

Ability to adapt to new conditions different people not the same. So, many people experience such adverse symptoms as sleep disturbance, decreased performance, etc. during long air flights and fast crossings of several time zones, as well as during shift work. Other people adapt faster.

Among people, two extreme types of adaptation can be distinguished:

• sprinter(characterized by high resistance to short-term extreme factors and inability to endure long-term loads)

• stayer(reverse type - characterized by instability to the effects of short-term extreme factors and the ability to endure long-term loads).

Normal adaptation represents an adaptive process of the personality, which leads to its stable adaptation in typical problem situations without pathological changes in its structure and, at the same time, without changes in the norms of the social group in which the personality is active.

Pathological adaptation (disadaptation) represents the activity of the individual in social situations, which is carried out with the help of pathological mechanisms and forms of behavior, leading to the formation of pathological complexes of character, which is part of neurotic and psychotic syndromes (diseases).

However, the most common "diseases" of adaptation during long-term stay of people in adverse conditions. Due to the prolonged tension of regulatory mechanisms, as well as cellular mechanisms associated with increased energy costs, depletion and loss of the most important reserves of the body occur. Part of the structures or functions is turned off: memory, attention, thinking suffer. Adjustment continues through illness. The central nervous system plays a decisive role in this. The preservation of life is ensured at the expense of an expensive forced “payment”. In the future, the death of the body may occur.

Adaptation (lat. adapto - I adapt) is the process of adapting to changing environmental conditions.

Each of us has sunbathed on the beach at one time or another. Although the reason for such a long exposure to the sun is purely cosmetic, nature thinks otherwise. The tanning process is an example of an adaptation designed to protect us from UV-induced stress on skin cells.

The adaptation process is defensive in nature, and the degree of adaptation is directly proportional to the intensity of the stress factor. Have you ever tried sunbathing in the middle of winter? You can lie in the sun for hours without any noticeable changes. This is possible because the sun is low and the ultraviolet rays are not as intense. Even repeated long exposures to the sun will lead to little.

A completely different reaction will manifest itself in summer, when the sun is directly overhead. It will be immediate and powerful. At first, the skin will turn red and inflamed. This, of course, corresponds to the stage of anxiety, according to Selye's General Adaptation Syndrome. Our body accumulates adaptive forces in the area of ​​stress. In the case of sunburn, it is the mobilization of melanin (skin pigment) to counteract further exposure to the sun's ultraviolet radiation. If the impact continues, the second stage begins - the stage of resistance. It is now that supercompensation occurs in the form of darkening of the skin. The amount of energy used during adaptation, according to Selye, is limited. If we continue to sunbathe in the sun, it will end with the transition to the third stage - the stage of exhaustion.

At this stage, local adaptive energy reserves have already been used, and reserves that lie deeper may not be enough. Instead of supercompensation in the form of a tan, decompensation and tissue loss occur with the appearance of blisters, then a burn. Continued exposure to the sun will result in death. Summing up, we can say that by exposing ourselves to stress in the form of exposure to the ultraviolet of the sun, we get a supercompensation in the form of a tan. But if we continue to be in the sun, then the body loses this ability and the reverse process begins - decompensation. In order to trigger the adaptive mechanism, the stress must be sufficiently intense, but short, and repeated infrequently so as not to exhaust the reserves of adaptive energy, which provides supercompensation.

The concept of adaptive energy makes it possible to describe individual adaptive differences as differences in the distribution of adaptive energy according to the structural-functional scheme of the adaptation system (as well as in the amount of this energy). This scheme itself can be complex, but is uniform within a given species (for definiteness, Selye considers adults of the same sex).

G. Selye proposed to distinguish between "superficial" and "deep" adaptive energy. The first is available on demand and is replenished at the expense of the second - "deep". The latter is mobilized by adaptive restructuring of the body's homeostatic mechanisms. Her depletion is irreversible, according to G. Selye. However, the thesis about the absolute irreversibility of the costs of hypothetical "adaptive energy" is currently more symbolic than experimentally substantiated. With the ongoing action of a stress factor, the manifestations of the "stress triad" change in intensity.

With short-term strong extreme impacts, various symptoms of stress are clearly manifested. Short-term stress is like a comprehensive manifestation of the onset of long-term stress. Under the action of stressors that cause prolonged stress (and only relatively light loads can be sustained for a long time), the onset of stress development is erased, with a limited number of noticeable manifestations of adaptive processes. Therefore, short-term stress can be considered as an enhanced model for the onset of long-term stress. And although short-term and long-term stress differ from each other in their conspicuous manifestations, nevertheless, they are based on identical mechanisms, but operating in different modes (with different intensities). Short-term stress is the rapid expenditure of "superficial" adaptive reserves and, along with this, the beginning of the mobilization of "deep" ones. If the "surface" reserves are not enough to respond to the extreme demands of the environment, and the rate of mobilization of the "deep" reserves is insufficient to compensate for the expended adaptive reserves, then the individual may die with completely unused "deep" adaptive reserves.

Prolonged stress - gradual mobilization and expenditure of both "superficial" and "deep" adaptive reserves. Its course can be hidden, i.e., reflected in the change in adaptation indicators, which can only be recorded by special methods. Maximum tolerated long-term stressors cause severe symptoms of stress. Adaptation to such factors can be provided that the human body has time, by mobilizing deep adaptive reserves, to "adjust" to the level of long-term extreme environmental requirements. The symptomatology of prolonged stress resembles the initial general symptoms of somatic, and sometimes mental, disease states. Such stress can turn into illness. The cause of long-term stress can be a repetitive extreme factor. In this situation, the processes of adaptation and re-adaptation are alternately "turned on". Their manifestations may seem merged. In order to improve the diagnosis and prognosis of the course of stressful conditions, it is proposed to consider the conditions caused by long-term intermittent stressors as an independent group.

In a number of specific physiological experiments, Selye showed that the redistribution of this resource increases the resistance to some factors and at the same time reduces the resistance to others. The concept of adaptive energy has acquired an "axiomatic" form:

1. Adaptive energy is available in a limited amount, given from birth.

2. There is an upper limit on the amount of adaptive energy that can be used by an individual at any moment of (discrete) time. This amount can be concentrated in one direction or distributed among different directions of response to multiple environmental challenges.

3. There is a threshold of exposure to an external factor that must be crossed in order to cause an adaptive response.

4. Adaptive energy can be active at two different levels of competence: the primary level, at which the response is generated in response to a high level of the factor, with high costs of adaptive energy, and the secondary level, at which the response is generated at a low level of exposure, with low costs of adaptive energy.

In 1952, Goldstone offered a critique and development of Selye's theory. He supplements Selye's laboratory experiments with a description of typical clinical cases that confirm this picture. Goldstone argues that this description of adaptation in terms of adaptive energy is extremely useful. At the same time, he refutes the first axiom, according to which adaptive energy is available in a limited amount, given from birth.

Goldstone proposes the concept of permanent production of adaptive energy, which can also be accumulated and stored in a limited amount, and demonstrates that this concept even better describes Selye's experiments than the original idea of ​​permanent adaptation capital. He also uses the work of Carrel, who studied adaptation to stimuli below the anxiety threshold, and showed that such exercises non-specifically enhance (“awaken”) the general adaptive response, which contradicts Selye’s purely costly concept, the shortcomings of which he subsequently tried to overcome in his concept. eustress.

Goldstone argues that constantly arriving weak negative stimuli are constantly encountered and overcome by continuously acting adaptation. The initializing effect of incentives is to awaken the adaptation system and bring it into a state of readiness for a faster and more effective response. Stronger stimuli may require more adaptive energy to be expended than is produced; then the adaptive reserve is put to work, and if it is used up, then death occurs. There is a maximum possible rate of consumption of adaptive energy, and at this maximum the organism cannot cope with any additional stimulus. It is described how one stimulus can influence the individual's ability to adapt to other stimuli, the outcome depends on the specific situation:

A patient who cannot cope with the disease is able to overcome it after a moderate additional stimulus.

In the process of adapting to this new stimulus, he may acquire the ability to respond more intensely to all stimuli.

As a result of exposure to a strong stimulus, the patient may not be able to adapt to an additional strong stimulus.

If he successfully adapts to the disease, then this adaptation can be destroyed by the impact of a second strong stimulus.

For some diseases (in particular, diseases of adaptation), exposure to a fresh strong stimulus can defeat the disease. This impact is always associated with risk, but it can also normalize the functioning of the adaptation system.

Axiom Goldstone. Adaptation energy can be produced, although its production declines with old age, it can also be stored in the form of adaptation capital, although the capacity for this capital is limited. If an individual spends his adaptive energy faster than he produces, then he spends his adaptive capital and dies when it is completely depleted.

Modern models of adaptation and adaptive energy are based on the idea of ​​limiting factors (first proposed in 1828 by K. Spengler and gained fame in application to agrocenoses after the works of von Liebig, 1840) and evolutionary principles of optimality, leading from the works of J. B. S. Haldane. Adaptation is presented as an evolutionarily optimal system for distributing adaptive energy to neutralize the most harmful factors.