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High-Intensity Stress

Meaning

High-Intensity Stress refers to a severe, acute physiological or psychological challenge that maximally taxes the body’s primary homeostatic and defense systems. This category of stress, which includes maximal exertion or sudden trauma, elicits an immediate, robust, and widespread activation of the sympathetic nervous system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. While controlled, transient high-intensity stress can trigger beneficial adaptive responses (hormesis), chronic or poorly recovered exposure rapidly leads to allostatic overload and systemic dysfunction. Clinically, it is important to distinguish this from low-grade, chronic stress.