Stress, Coping, and Health

Relationship Between Life Events and Stress

• Life is not just about being alive, but being well.
• Stress can arise from bad days and various life events, creating negative impacts on well-being.

Demand and Coping with Stress

• Life events impose demands on motivation and behavior, which can be positive (achieving goals) or negative (remedial actions for issues).
• Coping refers to the behaviors motivated to adjust and regulate external demands and their consequences.
• Stress occurs when demands exceed coping resources, influencing physical, psychological, and behavioral reactions.

Characteristics of Stressors

• Stressors can be demanding, challenging, and threatening to individual welfare.
• Key characteristics of stressors:
  • Challenge: Requires extra effort to manage.
  • Demand: Must be coped with to function adequately.
  • Threat: Potentially harmful psychologically or physically.
  • Varies in controllability, duration, magnitude, predictability.

Types of Stressors

• Chronic Stressors: Gradually develop and last longer than life-change events.
• Daily Hassles: Everyday irritations and annoyances.
• Life-Change Events: Clear beginnings and ends.
• Non-events: Anticipated but unfulfilled events.
• Traumatic Events: Severe stressors threatening life or injury; long-lasting effects.

Positive vs. Negative Life Events

• Both positive (e.g., starting a new job) and negative events (e.g., accidents) can prompt stress responses.
• Eustress: Positive stress caused by events that motivate and are beneficial.
• Distress: Negative stress; arises from overwhelming demands and negative feelings, leading to physical ailments.

Psychological Effects of Stress

• Symptoms include anxiety, hopelessness, low self-esteem, fatigue, tension, and maladaptive behaviors such as substance abuse, poor eating habits.

Coping with Stress

• Coping Process: Involves planning, execution, and feedback based on the assessment of life events.
  • Primary appraisal: Evaluating if an event is stress-inducing.
  • Secondary appraisal: Assessing coping resources available.
• Coping strategies can be problem-focused (dealing directly with the issue) or emotion-focused (managing emotional response).

Factors Influencing Coping Strategies

• Controllability dramatically affects coping approaches:
  • Problem-focused coping is better for controllable events.
  • Emotion-focused coping is advantageous for events perceived as uncontrollable.

Feedback in Coping

• Monitoring the effectiveness of coping strategies informs further responses, allowing individuals to adapt their coping efforts.

Impact of Sociocultural Factors

• Discrimination and racism can amplify stress, causing chronic pressure leading to health impacts like hypertension.

Stress Impact on Health

• Stressors can weaken immune function, increase susceptibility to diseases (e.g., colds, flu), and worsen existing health conditions.
• There is a psychological component (psychoneuroimmunology) with immune responses being affected by stress levels.
• Sickness Behavior: Psychological state that arises due to the immune response when pathogens invade, leading to fatigue, social withdrawal, and lack of desires.

Final Thoughts

• Coping with stress is crucial for maintaining well-being. The effectiveness of coping mechanisms may hinge on how individuals appraise events, the controllability of stressors, and the strategies they choose to employ. Stress can affect both physical health and psychological states, emphasizing the importance of effective coping strategies in stressful situations.