Untitled Flashcards Set

Module 58: Stress and Illness 

Note: all responses should be in bold or colored font. 

Stress is not a situation but a response

• Differences of stress and stressor

  • stress : a physical and mental response to a challenging or threatening situation

  • Stressor: a stressful stimulus or situation demanding adaptation 

• There are 2 types of stress:

  • Acute stress: a temporary pattern of a stressor--activates arousal with a distinct onset, and limited duration (knowing of a test and studying period is limited time)

  • Chronic stress: a continuous state of stressful arasoul, persisting over time (challenging family situation) (no clear end point) 

Positives:

• Despite the bad name that stress has-it is a vital part of our lives-as long as it is controlled

Mobillizes immune system

Athletes, entertainers, teachers, thrive and excel when aroused with challenge

Can promote stronger self esteem, deepend sense of purpose when overcoming challenges

Early stress sometimes yields emotional resilience

Negatives (Distress)

• Chronic stress may harm individuals:

  • Childrens physiological responses to severe child abuse can put them at risk for chronic stress

  • PTSD: individuals who have undergone severe ordreals-rape, combat, beatings, torture-may expierence a de;ayed pattern of stress symptoms that can appear as long as years after the event

  • Immune system suppression: may yield future circulatory, digestive, respiratory and infectious diseases

• Life events that provoke stress

  • Catastrophes: unpredictable large scale events; war, natural disasters 

• Significant life changes

  • Death of a loved one, loss of a job, marriage, divorce, new house 

• Daily Hassles

  • Rush hour traffic, annoying roommates, long lines at the store, too many things to do 

    • Over time these add up! 

Traumatic Stressors

• Certain events go beyond a normal stressor; examples would be the world tsunami in 2004, 9/11, hurricane katrina, sandy hook, etc.

To be considered a traumatic stressor, it must be a situation that threatens your, or others’ physical safety and promotes a feeling of helplessness

Response to a normal stressor

• The physical response to a normal stressor is fairly universal as well and follows the same sequence

• An imitation of arousal

• A protective behavioral reaction (fight or flight)

• Internal response of the autonomic nervous system

• A decrease in the effectiveness of the immune system

General Adaptation Syndrome 

• GAS- A pattern of general physical responses that take essentially the same form in responding to any serious chronic stressor

  • Alarm reaction: the body mobilizes its resources to cope with a stressor

  • Resistance: the body seems to adapt to the presence of the stressor

  • Exhaustion: the body depletes its resources

Stress Responses and Coping

• Problem focused coping: a stress management strategy in which a person directly confronts a stressor in an attempt to decrease or eliminate it (you deal with the stressor) 

• Emotion focused coping: attempting to alleviate the stress by avoiding or ignoring the stressor and attending to emotional needs rather than the stressor (you kinda move on, you don’t deal w the stressor)

• Tend-and-befriend phenomenon: under stress, people (especially women) often provide support to others (tend) and bond with and seek support from others (befriend)

  • Friends and family are gonna be biased and tell you want you want to hear 

Stress and Health

• Psychophysiological illness: any stress related illness, ex- hypertension, heachaches

• Psychoneuroimmunology: the study of how stress affects our resistance to disease 

Stress and Health

• Stress makes you less able to fight off disease b/c ur nervous/endocrine system influence the immune system

• Immune system-system that defends your body by isolation and destroying bacteria and viruses

  • Lymphocytes: white blood cells (2 types)

    • B lymphocytes: bone marrow, fight bacterial infections

    • T lymphocytes: form in lymphatic tissue and fight cancer cells

    • Macrophage; (big eaters)--identity, pursue, and ingest harmful invaders

    • Natural killer cells (NK CELLS), attack disease cells invaded by cancer/virus

• Coronary health disease: leading cause of death in US--high blood pressure and family history increase risk--as do environmental factors

• Type A: Friedman and Rosenmans term for competitive, hard driven, impatient, verbally aggressive and anger prone people

  • 69% were more likely to have heart disease

• Type B:Friedman and Rosenman’s easygoing and relaxed people

• Explain the difference between a stressor, a stress reaction, and stress.

  1. Stressor a stressful stimulus or situation demanding adaptation(lecture)__

  2. Stress reaction a physical and emotional response to a stressor (528)_

  3. Stress a physical and mental response to a challenging or threatening situation (lecture)___

• What is the stress response of the following stressful life events:

  1. Catastrophes ___unpredictable large scale events; war, natural disasters (lecture)__

     • What is acculturative stress? it’s stress that arises with the shock and adjustments that ome from adapting to various cultures and societies-this stress decreases with time as you become adapted to surroundings/enviornment (584)_

  2. Significant life changes having a love one die, friend move away, leaving home for college etc. They usually occur during young adulthood (584)_

  3. Daily hassles dead cell phones, having to do too many things, giving a public speech, some people can shrug off hassles and other cannot. They can add up and take a toll on health and well being. (584) ___

• Explain the role that each of the following hormones have in the human stress responses:

  1. Epinephrine adernal stress hormones  that are a reaction of an emotion-arousing event ((586)_

  2. Norepinephrine non-adreline which is a reactant of brain pathways. (586)_

  3. Cortisol the outer part of the adrenal glands secrets a glucocorticoid stress hormone (586)_

  4. Oxytocin the love hormone that plays a role in human stress response through promoting social interaction and being an anxiety reducer (597)___

• Explain in detail what happens (physiologically and emotionally) in each stage of the General Adaptation Syndrome how our bodies react to stressful event 

  1. Alarm body reacts to stressful or stressful situation, Sympathetic nervous system _

  2. Resistance body tries to adapt to stress, sustained release of cortisol, in attempt to maintai narousal_

  3. Exhaustion body resources are depleted-immune system is increased..

• Why do experts prefer to use the term psychophysiological illnesses rather than the term psychosomatic to refer to stress related illnesses?_____

• Explain what psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) is._the study of how stress affects our prononeness to disease (+ the study of how physiological, neural and the endocrine processes together affects the immune system and the resulting health (slide show 97+ pg 588)____

• What are lymphocytes?__white blood cells (slide 98)___

  1. Where do B lymphocytes form? they form in bone marrow (98)_ And what do they do?_fight against bacteria (98)____

  2. Where do T lymphocytes form? they form in the lymphatic tissue (98)_ And what do they do?___fight against cancer cells __

• There are two other agents of the immune system: macrophage and natural killer cells (NK cells). For each, explain what they do. 

  1. Macrophage__they identify, pursue and ingest harmful invaders in the white blood cells (98)___

  2. Natural killer cells__they attack disease cells (98)___

• What can happen if an immune system responds too strongly?__it may attack the body’s own tissue or cause an allergic reaction (589)___

• What can happen if an immune system is underreacting? The immune system may allow a bacterial infection to flare (589)_

• How does stress impact the body’s immune system and the production of lymphocytes? stress triggers lympothctytes, and the socially disrupt have weaker immune systems- so if you have a weaker immyn  system stress reduces its energy (590)_

• Watch this video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-t1Z5-oPtU  (it’s less than five minutes!) And write one or two things you learned: ___Adernal gland releases stress hormones epinephrine

• Hormones travel through your blood stream __

• What are some specific ways that stress affects the immune system? Strress affects the immune system as it is like a surgigical wound for example; it heals more slowly when a person is stressed than people who are not-stress can speed up transfers of diseases (589)

• Health psychologists, Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman developed the terms Type A and Type B to describe people’s personality in relation to developing coronary heart disease. 

  1. Define what they meant by Type A.__Friedman and Rosenmans term for competitive, hard driven, impatient, verbally aggressive and anger prone people (lecture)

  2. ___

  3. Define what they meant by Type B.___Friedman and Rosenman’s easygoing and relaxed people

  4. (lecture)__

  5. By the time the study was complete, Type A personalities suffered from more heart attacks. Can we then conclude that those with a Type A personality are at greater risk for coronary heart disease? If yes, explain why, if no, explain why. yes we can conclude that people with a type A personality are at a greater risk for heart disease as they are generally more aggrevated people which is linked to risks of disease (591)___What other factors may have contributed to the results?_other factors contributed include being a pessimist, or engaging in negative physical factors such as being a smoker (592)____

• How is anger viewed and dealt with in individualized culture versus collective cultures?__in a individualized culture people deal with anger through means of a cathartic release- in a colectie people usually look for help and for managing anger (592) ___

• Does venting one’s anger provide the cathartic release that is hoped for? venting anger provides carthic release, however after the release people will experience guilt or still lingering anger. (592) __ In the long run, is it helpful? Why?__In the long run cathartic release is not helpful as people may feel more angered than they started out (592) __

• According to the text, experts offer two suggestions to best handle anger. Explain what they are.__

• Wait: to reduce anger by simply waiting (593)

• Find a healthy distraction: to calm yourself down through a distraction or beneficial activity (593)

• Distance: to move away from the siutaition either mentally or physically (593) ___