# Allostasis --- **Allostasis** is a process of achieving physiological stability (i.e. [[homeostasis]]) under [[stress|stressful]] conditions through [[psychology|psychological]] and **behavioral** changes—it is often referred to as "stability through variation." It can also be thought of as the human brain maintaining a "psychological equilibrium" by serving as a mediator between stress and internal regulators. Allostasis is similar in a lot of ways to [[homeostasis]], but it does have a lot of key differences. Homeostasis is an unconscious thing (although it *does* anticipate changes that we're conscious of), we can't control it, and we don't really think about it much. Allostasis does have an unconscious portion, but we can actively work to affect it. In other words, to achieve allostasis we can use our developed our frontal lobes (or higher reasoning) to adapt to stress. You can think about the stressor, think about your responses to the stressor, and act them out. It also doesn't have to be reactive, but can involve anticipating needs and preparing to satisfy them before they arise. ## Allostatic Load The **allostatic load** is the cumulative psychological "wear and tear" that affects how you respond to stress. A higher allostatic load is associated with worse overall health, including chronic disease and premature death. When there are stressors that exceed the ability of an individual to cope, we call that **allostatic overload**. Allostatis load is cumulative, and many things can and do add to it. The good news is that we can reduce allostatic load by getting the right care. Some things that add to one's allostatic load: - ordinary events/life experience - major challenges/life events - [[trauma]] - poor health factors - poor [[sleep]]/disruption to [[circadian rhythm]] - lack of [[exercise]] - [[smoking]]/drinking alcohol/unhealthy diet Some things that can reduce one's allostatic load: - processing trauma—even from long ago - using healthy [[coping mechanism|coping mechanisms]] - using social supports - proper [[sleep]] - proper [[exercise]] - good diet One way to think about allostatic load is to look at it like fastening locks to a scale in order to balance it. It works for a while, but the more and more locks you have to put on the scale, the more and more stress on the scale itself. At a certain point, the scale is just going to break under the strain of all the locks. ___