Things now begin to make sense when you consider both the duration of a stressor and the recovery period combined. Suppose that something truly stressful occurs, and a maximal signal to secrete CRH, ACTH, and glucocorticoids is initiated. If the stressor ends after, say, ten minutes, there will cumulatively be perhaps a twelve-minute burst of CRH exposure (ten minutes during the stressor, plus the seconds it takes to clear the CRH afterward) and a two-hour burst of exposure to glucocorticoids (the roughly eight minutes of secretion during the stressor plus the much longer time to clear the
...more
