General Adaptive Syndrome
Selye recognised a long time ago that all organisms go through various stages as the body tries to adapt to unfavourable conditions and demonstrates how much our bodies have to change in order to deal with hardship. 

Stage 1: ALARM
'Fight and Defend'

A living organism will go into red alert, pumping out all its energy and resources to deal with the hardship. For humans, this is when we are feeling highly aroused, and are only able to keep going through adrenaline and other powerful chemicals that give us a temporary boost in energy. Mitochondria will divert energy to fight the infection or virus.  

Stage 2: ADAPTATION
'Resistance, Disease and Illness'

When unfavourable conditions carry on and the problem isn't resolved or disappears, all living organisms go through a period of resistance. This is when the body fights to keep going, despite the unfavourable external forces but struggles to cope. It desperately tries to adapt to the tough conditions. Selye says that it is at this stage that humans start to become ill, susceptible to diseases, gut problems, skin rashes and viruses, because their body is under duress. Humans can survive in that stage for a very long time because the body is miraculous, and life is resilient. However, we are surviving not thriving.  

Stage 3: EXHAUSTION

The final stage of adapting to an unsuitable environment is exhaustion. This is when the body has literally had enough and cannot correct itself anymore. According to Selye and modern researchers, prolonged duress can weaken the immune system, increase risk of heart disease, increase blood pressure and ultimately, the body’s only defence is to go into shutdown mode, the “dauer failsafe” mode when the body is just ticking over, conserving all its energy simply to exist.   

Are you feeling on red alert or exhausted, burnt out, and fatigued?

The Reset to Thrive programme can show you how to reset your autonomic system back to its healthy, thrive mode and live in a more nurturing environment, with support from our well-being coaches and group meetings.

The Reset to Thrive programme is designed to help you bounce back after dealing with post-viral conditions. We've based this programme on scientific research to help your body and mind return to a healthy state. In simple terms, our methods are built on solid evidence from fields like psychology and health science. They tell us how to improve wellbeing and manage symptoms. If you're interested in the science behind all this, we've got a list of research papers below. Feel free to take a look and learn more about why our programme works.

Yoga Research

Breathing Research

Stress Response Research