Health Psychology

Definition: Health Psychology focuses on the interplay between physical activities, psychological traits, stress reactions, and social relationships in influencing overall health and physical illnesses.
Objectives of Health Psychologists:
- Understand the connection between stress and illness.
- Investigate why individuals make certain life choices.
- Explore how behaviors can affect an individual’s ability to fight off illnesses.
- Assess how behaviors can increase the likelihood of getting sick.
- Evaluate the effectiveness of interventions that aim to change unhealthy behaviors.
Subfields of Health Psychology:
- Clinical Health Psychology
- Behavioral Medicine

Definitions and Concepts of Stress

General Definition of Stress: Loosely describes a variety of unpleasant feeling states such as frustration, anger, conflict, feeling overwhelmed, or fatigued.

Stimulus-Based Definition:
- Describes stress/stressor as a demanding or threatening event/situation.
- Characterizes stress as a stimulus causing specific reactions.
- Limitation: Fails to account for individual differences in perceptions and reactions to stressors.
Response-Based Definition:
- Emphasizes the physiological responses triggered in response to demanding or threatening situations.
- Limitations: Does not provide a complete understanding of stress.

Eustress:
- Positive stress that motivates individuals to act in their best interests.
- Associated with positive feelings, optimal health, and performance.
Distress:
- Negative stress that leads to feelings of burnout, fatigue, and exhaustion, ultimately resulting in decreased performance.

As stress levels increase from low to moderate, performance improves.
At an optimal stress level (the peak of the curve), performance reaches its maximum.
If stress exceeds this optimal level, it enters the distress region, leading to excessive stress that degrades performance (Everly & Lating, 2002).

Chronic Stressors:
- Persist for an extended period of time.
- Examples:
  - Long-term unemployment
  - Job overload
  - Financial difficulties
  - Relationships conflicts
  - Chronic illness
  - Discrimination
Acute Stressors:
- Brief events that can lead to overwhelming feelings even after the event has ended.
- Examples:
  - Breaking a leg
  - Witnessing a car accident
  - Major exams ( extit{e.g., organic chemistry})
  - Relationship breakups
  - Moving homes

Catastrophes:
- Unpredictable, large-scale events requiring significant adaptation, often associated with overwhelming threat.
- Examples: Natural disasters.
Traumatic Events:
- Situations exposing individuals to actual or threatened death or serious injury, such as:
  - Military combat
  - Physical assaults (e.g., sexual assault, robbery)
  - Terrorist attacks
  - War
Major Life Changes:
- Require adjustment and can have long-term implications on physical and mental health.

Sample Items and Units:
- Death of spouse: 100
- Divorce: 75
- Marital separation: 65
- Jail term: 63
- Death of a close family member: 63
- Personal injury or illness: 53
- Marriage: 50
- Dismissal from work: 47
- Marital reconciliation: 45
- Pregnancy: 40

Additional Events:
- Change in spouse arguments: 36
- Major mortgage: 31
- Foreclosure of mortgage or loan: 30
- Begin or end school: 26
- Change in living conditions: 25
- Change in work hours/conditions: 20
- Change in residence/schools/recreation: 19
- Change in social activities: 18
- Small mortgage or loan: 17
- Vacation: 13
- Christmas: 12
- Minor law violations: 11

Definition: Minor irritations and annoyances encountered in daily life, often leading to negative mood states.
Impact:
- Frequency of daily hassles is a stronger predictor of physical and psychological health than life change units.
- Common examples include daily commutes.

Definition of Stress:
- "Stress is the nonspecific response of the body to any demand made upon it."
- Findings: Any life change, whether pleasant or unpleasant, generates some stress. Prolonged exposure to stressors led to observable physiological changes (e.g., adrenal enlargement, thymus shrinkage, stomach ulceration).
- Alternative definition: Stress is an event perceived as threatening, elicits physiological and behavioral responses.

Alarm:
- Immediate body reaction to a threatening situation, activating the sympathetic nervous system.
Resistance:
- Body adapts to the stressor but remains alert. Symptoms of the initial alarm phase persist until resources are exhausted.
Exhaustion:
- Inability to adapt to a stressor, leading to physical wear and tear on the body, potentially resulting in disease or death as the body’s tissues and organs deteriorate.

Alters behaviors such as eating, exercise, sleep, and drinking habits in response to stress.

Cortisol:
- Increased secretion from the adrenal gland during stress.
- Moderate elevations enhance memory and immune function. Prolonged exposure can damage health by impairing the hippocampus and exhausting the immune system.
  - Issues include malfunctioning lymphocytes and natural killer (NK) cells.
High Blood Pressure:
- Sustained high blood pressure can lead to heart attacks or heart failure.

Stress triggers immune responses similar to infection responses, which are designed for short-term effects but could be harmful long-term.
Increased inflammation and poor regulation might lead to cardiovascular disease due to chronic stress.
Autoimmune diseases may occur where immune cells attack the body’s own healthy cells.

276 healthy volunteers reported stressful experiences and were subsequently infected with a cold virus. Observations indicated that those with chronic stressors were more likely to develop colds.
Conclusion: Prolonged stress significantly weakens the immune system, making one more susceptible to illnesses.

Definition of Coping: Actions taken to master, tolerate, reduce, or minimize the effects of stressors.

Problem-Focused Coping:
- Involves direct actions to eliminate the source of stress or reduce its impact (e.g., making practical changes to address the stressor).
Emotion-Focused Coping:
- Changing the emotional experience related to stressors, which may include:
  - Reappraisal of the stressor to make it less threatening
  - Seeking social support
  - Engaging in relaxation techniques or meditation
  - Physical exercise and distractions.

Coping by Reappraisal:
- Involves reinterpretation of a scenario to lessen perceived threat.
Inoculation:
- Building a sense of control, leading to calmness against stressors.