Stress control training for older women with metabolic syndrome

Stress is defined as the organism’s physical and emotional response to situations that demand a great effort for adaptation. Hans Selye5 proposed that the stress process occurs in three phases: alarm (alert), resistance and exhaustion, each of which is related to specific reactions. Later studies, conducted in Brazil by Lipp, led to the establishment of a new stress phase between the resistance and exhaustion stages, which was called the near-exhaustion phase.6 The near-exhaustion phase comes at the end of the resistance phase cited by Selye and provides an opportunity for the development of pathologies which precede exhaustion. Each stress phase embodies specific symptoms, and progression through the phases indicates a worsening picture, eventually leading to the development of diseases to which the individual is predisposed.