Allostatic load
Etymology
The parent term "allostasis" was coined by Sterling and Eyer in 1988, and "allostatic load" by the neuroscientists Bruce McEwen and Eliot Stellar in 1993. It comes from Greek "allo-" (other or variable) and "stasis" (standing), meaning "stability through change" — a contrast with "homeostasis" and its "homo-" (same). "Load" names the accumulated cost of that repeated adjustment.
noun phrase · /al-oh-STAT-ik LOHD/
The cumulative wear on the body from chronic or repeated stress and the effort of adapting to it.
What it names
A precise term for the price of long-term stress — how the systems that help you cope in the short run grind the body down over years, useful for talking about burnout, inequality, and health with real mechanism behind it.
Example
Years of financial precarity left a measurable allostatic load — high blood pressure, disrupted sleep, a body that never fully stood down.
Related idea
It refines homeostasis (already here): where homeostasis holds a set point steady, allostasis achieves stability by shifting the target, and allostatic load is the damage that shifting racks up over time.