User:Anthony.Sebastian/SebastianSandbox5

Allostasis and allostatic load
In the biology of the human living system, allostasis refers to physiological mechanisms that enable the system to adjust to diverse perturbing, stressful, and potentially harmful circumstances, and thereby maintain system viability, specifically through changes in the system’s properties, its bodily state &mdash; 'adaptation'. Allo refers to variability; stasis, to stability &mdash; so that allostasis frequently colloquializes as "stability through change". Allostatic mechanisms appear prominently in the central nervous system’s regulation of (a) the behavior of the system-as-a-whole (e.g., eating behavior in response to hunger stress), and (b) the physiological behavior of subsystems of the system-as-a-whole (e.g., cardiovascular function in response to predator stress). Allostatic mechanisms contribute to system homeostasis, not by restoring physiological or behavioral variable to within an optimal set-point range, but in effect by changing the optimal set-point range, at least temporarily, to adapt to the potentially harmful circumstances the system faces.=