Emotion, Stress, and Health Notes

Experiencing Emotion: Anger

  • Consequences of anger:

    • Chronic hostility is linked to heart disease.
    • Emotional catharsis may be temporarily calming, but does not reduce anger over the long term.
    • Expressing anger can make us more angry.
    • Controlled assertions of feelings may resolve conflicts, and forgiveness may rid us of angry feelings.
    • Anger communicates strength and competence, motivates action, and expresses grief when wisely used.

  • Cultural differences in expressing anger:

    • Individualist cultures encourage people to vent anger.
    • Collectivist cultures are less likely to do so.

  • Western vent-your-anger advice:

    • Presumes that aggressive action or fantasy enables emotional release, or catharsis.

  • Better ways to manage anger:

    • Wait.
    • Find a healthy distraction or support.
    • Distance yourself.

Experiencing Emotion: Happiness

  • State of happiness:
    • Influences all facets of life.
  • Feel-good, do-good phenomenon:
    • People’s tendency to be helpful when already in a good mood.
  • Subjective well-being:
    • Self-perceived happiness or satisfaction with life.
    • Used along with measures of objective well-being to evaluate people’s quality of life.

Evidence-Based Suggestions for a Happier Life

  • Take control of your time.
  • Act happy.
  • Seek work and leisure that engage your skills.
  • Buy shared experiences rather than things.
  • Join the “movement” movement.
  • Give your body the sleep it wants.
  • Give priority to close relationships.
  • Focus beyond self.
  • Count your blessings and record your gratitude.
  • Nurture your spiritual self.

Stress and Illness

  • Stress:
    • The process by which we perceive and respond to certain events, called stressors, that we appraise as threatening or challenging.
    • Stressors appraised as threats can lead to strong negative reactions.
    • Extreme or prolonged stress can cause harm.

Stressors: Things That Push Our Buttons

  • Catastrophes:
    • Unpleasant, large-scale events.
  • Significant life changes:
    • Personal events; life transitions.
  • Daily hassles:
    • Day-to-day challenges.

Stress Response

  • Cannon's view:
    • The stress response as a “fight- or-flight” system.
  • Selye's proposal:
    • A general three-phase (alarm–resistance–exhaustion) general adaptation syndrome (GAS).
  • Gender differences:
    • Facing stress, women may have a tend-and- befriend response; men may withdraw socially, turn to alcohol, or become aggressive.

Stress Effects and Health

  • Stress hormones suppress the immune system.
  • Animal studies:
    • Stress of adjustment in monkeys causes weakened immune systems.
  • Human studies:
    • Stress affects surgical wound healing and development of colds.
    • Low stress may increase the effectiveness of vaccinations.
  • Stress does not make people sick but does reduce the immune system’s ability to function optimally.
  • Slower surgical wound healing; increased vulnerability to colds; decreased vaccine effectiveness

Reducing Stress

  • Aerobic exercise
    • Sustained activity increases heart and lung fitness; reduces stress, depression, and anxiety
    • Can weaken the influence of genetic risk for obesity
    • Increases the quality and “quantity” of life (~2 years)

Faith Communities and Health

  • Faith factor
    • Religiously active people tend to live longer than those who are not religiously active.
    • Possible explanations include the effect of intervening variables, such as the healthy behaviors, social support, or positive emotions often found among people who regularly attend religious services.