Stress and Health Ch. 11

  • Health Psychology- field of study devoted to understanding the relationship between physical activities, psychological traits, and social relationships, and overall health and rates of illness
  • Stress- physical, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses to events that are appraised as threatening or challenging
  • Stressors- events that cause a stress reaction
  • Distress- the effect of unpleasant and undesirable stressors
  • Eustress- the effect of positive events, or the optimal amount of stress that people need to promote health and wellbeing

Cognitive Factors of Stress

  • Cognitive appraisal approach- how people think about a stressor determines the degree of stress response
  • Primary appraisal- 1st step involves 1. Estimating stressor severity and 2. Classifying it as either a threat or challenge
  • Secondary appraisal- 2nd step involves estimating a person’s coping resources available

Causes of Stress

  • Catastrophe- unpredictable, large-scale event evokes overwhelming threat and great need to adapt
  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)- exposure to catastrophe, provoking anxiety, nightmares, poor sleep, reliving the event, concentration problems, symptoms (n) is greater than 1 month
  • Major life events- requires significant adjustment
  • Social readjustment rating scale (SRRS)- assessment that measures the amount of stress in a person’s life resulting from major life stressors over one year (Figure 11.1)
  • College undergraduate stress scale- same but for college students
  • Hassles- daily annoyances in everyday life

-Lazarus & Folkman 1984

-hassles scale (0-3)

-”misplacing or losing things” and “troublesome neighbors”

-hassles are sometimes developed on a person’s developmental stage (pg. 419)

Daily Hassles

  • Research results- the perceived severity of daily hassles is a better predictor of headaches versus scores on a life events scale

-Daily hassles more damaging to our health versus major life  stressors

  • Pressure- psychological experience produced by external urgent demands or expectations for a particular behavior
  • Uncontrollability- control person has over a particular event or situation; the less control one has, the greater the stress
  • Frustration- psychological experience produced by the blocking of a desired goal or need
  • Frustration-aggression hypothesis (Berkowitz)-
  1. Frustration creates an internal readiness to aggress
  2. Aggression will not follow frustration unless certain cues are present
  3. Frustration does not always lead to aggression
  • Possible reaction to Frustration:
  • Aggression- actions meant to harm or destroy
  • Displaced aggression- expressing frustration towards less threatening or more available target; aka displacement
  • Escape or withdrawal- leaving the presence of a stressor, literally by psychological withdrawal into fantasy, drug abuse, or apathy

Daily Hassles: Conflicts

  • Approach-approach- person must choose between two desirable goals
  • Avoidance-avoidance- person must choose between two undesirable goals
  • Approach-avoidance- person must choose or not choose a goal that has both positive and negative aspects
  • Double approach-avoidance- person must decide between two goals, each possessing both positive and negative aspects
  • Multiple approach-avoidance- person must decide between more than

Bodily Reactions to Stress

  • Autonomic nervous system:
  • Sympathetic- energy expenditure; responds to stressful events
  • Parasympathetic system- energy storage; restores body to normal functioning
  • General adaptation syndrome (GAS) (Selye)

-three stages of body’s physiological reaction to stress:

  1. Alarm- initial response
  2. Resistance- energy reserves being depleted
  3. Exhaustion- weakened immune system; development of illnesses

Stress and the Immune System

  • General adaptation syndrome (GAS)- the three stages of the body’s physiological reaction to stress, including alarm, resistance, and exhaustion

  • Immune system- body’s defense against diseases, infection, injuries

  • Psychoneuroimmunology- the study of effects of psychological factors such as stress, emotions, thoughts, and behavior on the immune system

  • Research results: stress compromises the immune system leaving person vulnerable to illnesses

  • Coronary heart disease (CHD)- the build up of a waxy substance called plaque in the arteries of the heart

  • Type 2 diabetes- disease typically occurring in middle adulthood when the body either becomes resistant to the effects of insulin or can no longer secrete enough insulin to maintain normal glucose levels

  • Natural killer (NK)- immune-system cell responsible for suppressing viruses and destroying tumor cells

  • Health psychology- area of psychology focusing on how physical activities, psychological traits, stress reactions, and social relationships affect overall health and rate of illnesses

  • Primary appraisal- the first step in assessing stress, which involves estimating the severity of a stressor and classifying it as either a threat or challenge

  • Secondary appraisal- the second step in assessing a stressor, which involves estimating the resources available to the person for coping with the threat

  • Type A personality- ambitious, time conscious, extremely hardworking, and tends to have high levels of hostility and anger as well as being easily annoyed

  • Type B personality- relaxed and laid-back, less driven and competitive, slow to anger

  • Type C personality- pleasant but repressed, tends to internalize anger and anxiety, finds expressing emotions difficult

  • Type D personality- “distressed” experiences negative emotions and tends not to share these emotions in social situations out of fear of rejection or disapproval

  • Hardy personality- a person who seems to strive on stress but lacks the anger and hostility of the Type A personality

  • Optimists- people who expect positive outcomes

  • Burnout- negative changes in thoughts, emotions, and behavior as a result of prolonged stress or frustration, leading to feelings of exhaustion

  • Acculturative stress- stress resulting from the need to change and adapt a person’s ways to the majority culture

  • Homeopathy- the treatment of disease by inducting minute amounts of substances that would cause disease in larger doses

  • Ways to Deal with Stress

    • Coping strategies- actions taken to master, tolerate, reduce, or minimize stress
    • Problem-focused coping- elimination or reducing impact of the stress source through direct actions
    • Emotion-focused coping- reducing impact of a stressor by changing emotional reactions

    Defense Mechanisms

    • Psychological defense mechanisms- unconscious distortions of reality that reduce stress and anxiety
    • Denial- person refuses to acknowledge or recognize a threatening situation
    • Repression- threatening or unacceptable event completely eliminated from conscious awareness
    • Rationalization- person invents acceptable excuses for unacceptable behavior
    • Displacement- redirecting feelings from threatening to less threatening target
    • Regression- person falls back on childlike patterns of responding in reaction to stress

    Meditation and Coping

    • Meditation: mental exercises to refocus attention; trancelike consciousness
    • Concentrative meditation: focusing mind on repetitive or unchanging stimulus to clear mind/relax
    • Mindfulness meditation: the person purposefully pays attention to the present, without judgment or evaluation
    • Social-support system- the network of family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and others who can offer support, comfort, and aid to a person in need

    Factors Promoting Wellness

    • Exercise
    • Social activities
    • Getting enough sleep
    • Eating healthy
    • Having fun
    • Managing time
    • Practicing good coping skills
    • Religion