A systemic shock is a shock

Shock (mechanics)

A mechanical or physical shock is a sudden acceleration or deceleration caused, for example, by impact, drop, kick, earthquake, or explosion. Shock is a transient physical excitation....

 to any system

System

System is a set of interacting or interdependent components forming an integrated whole....

 that perturbs a system enough to drive it out of equilibrium. Systemic shocks occur in a wide range of fields, ranging from medicine (see shock) to economics to engineering

Engineering

Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...

. Designers of systems usually desire their systems to be able to withstand or recover from foreseeable system shocks; therefore, many systems are designed with mechanisms in place to restore an equilibrium state.