Chapter 14: Stress, Coping & Health

Chapter 14: Stress, Coping & Health

1. The Nature OF stress

   • Stress is defined as any circumstances that threaten or are perceived to threaten one's well-being & that thereby tax one's coping abilities
   • Stress as an Everyday Event
     • Lazarus & colleagues developed a stress scale and found that minor stress events (hassles) have more impact than big stressors. This may be because the cumulative nature of of stress that collectively create great strain.
     • Appraisal: Stress Lies in the Eye of the Beholder
       • Whats stress for one may be routine for another. Lazaurus & Folkman distinguish between Primary Appraisal, which is an initial evaluation of whether an event is (1) irrelevant to you (2) relevant but not life threatening or (3) Stressful, and Secondary Appraisal, which is an evaluation of your coping resources and options for dealing with stress. However, some are susceptible to stress, as anxious, neurotic and unhappy people report feeling stress more than others.

2. Major Types of Stress

   • Frustration
     • frustration occurs in any situation in which the pursuit of some goal is thwrated. Routine sources of frustration can elicit anger and aggression, some frustrations can be sources of significant stress such ass loss or failure.
     • Conflict
       • Conflict occurs when two or more incompatible motivations or behavioural impulses compete for expression, and can come in 3 types: Approach vs Approach, Avoidance, vs Avoidance, Approach vs Avoidance
       • Change
         • Life Changes are any noticeable alterations in one's living circumstances that require readjusment, these can produce stress simply do the change and having to adjust
         • Pressure
           • Pressure involves expectations or demands that one behave in a certain way.
             • recent research shows the adaptability to pressure and that stress may in fact prep the bodies response to handle the current stress event.
   • There are subtypes of stress, as well a distinction between Acute stressors, which are threatening events that have a clear endpoint, and Chronic Stressors, which are threatening events that have a relativelt long duration and no readily apparent time lmit. There are also 4 major types of stress: Frustration, Conflict, Change, and Pressure.

3. Responding to Stress

   • Emotional Responses
     • EMOTIONS COMMONLY ELICITED: common emotional responses to stress include (a) Annoyance, anger, guilt (b) Apprehension, anxiety, fear (c) dejection, sadness, and grief. Furthermore, positive emotions are associated with enhanced immune system, protection against heart disease, and longevity.
       • EFFECTS OF EMOTIONAL AROUSAL: Strong emotional arousal can interfere with attention, memory and can impair judgment and decision making. However, there is an optimal level of arousal as predicted by the Inverted-U theory
     • Physiological Responses
       • THE FIGHT-OR-FLIGHT RESPONSE: is a physiological reaction to threat in which the autonomic nervous system mobalizes the organism for attacking or fleeing an enemy, although most human responses cannot be handled simply through fight or flight.
         • GENERAL ADAPTATION SYNDROME: Selye concluded that stress reactions are non-specific and called it stress, he further produced a theory of stress called the General Adaptations Syndrome, which is a model of the body's stress response, consisting of 3 stages: (1) alarm (2) resistance (3) exhaustion. Moreover, the crux of the problem is that chronic overactivation of stress can lead to damaging physiological effects on a variety of organs
           • BRAIN-BODY PATHWAYS: There are 2 major pathways stress signals are sent from brain to endocrine system. Furthermore, there may be sex differences in reactivity along both of the pathways, especially between puperty and menopause. In addition, stress can interfere with neurogenesis.
       • Behavioural Responses
         • Behaviour is the crucial dimension of reactions to stress. Most behavioural responses involve Coping, which refers to active efforts to master, reduce, or tolerate the demands created by stress. Stress can be adaptive or maladaptive
           • GIVING UP & BLAMING ONESELF: learned helplessness is a passive behaviour produced by exposure to unavoidable aversive events which produces behavioural disengagement, and can contribute to depression. Excessive self-blame can be unhealthy compared to normal critical evaluation
             • STRIKING OUT AT OTHERS: Behaving in an aggressive manner tends to fuel more anger & aggression> Moreover people tend to respond to stress with an aggressive behaviour, aggression is any behaviour that is intended to hurt someone, wither physically or verbally.
               • INDULGING ONESELF: stress sometimes lead to impulse control other known as self-indulgence, which may lead to unhealthy patterns of unhealthy behaviours. Furthermore internet addiction, which consists of spending an inordinate amount of time on the internet and inability to control online use, is estimated to affect up to 19% of North Americans
                 • DEFENSIVE COPING: defense mechanisms are largely unconscious reactions that protect a person from unpleasent emotions such as anxiety and guilt.
                   • CONSTRUCTIVE COPING: constructive coping refers to relatively healthful efforts that people make to deal with stress. 3 Key themes surrounding constructive coping are: (1) constructive coping involves confronting problems directly, task-relevant, action-orientated (2) based on reasonably realistic appraisals of your stress and coping resources (3) involves learning to recognize, regulate, potentially disruptive emotional reactions to stress.
   • There are three levels of stress response: (1) Emotional (2) Physiological (3) Behavioural

4. The Effects of Stress on Psychological Functioning

   • IMPAIRED TASK PERFORMANCE: attention and whether or not it is being used on the problem at hand or worrying about performance, can result in diminished activity of prefrontal cortex and working memory.
     • BURNOUT: burnout involves physical and emotional exhaustion, cynicisim, and a lowered sense of self-efficacy that can be brought on gradually by chronic work-related stress
       • POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER: other known as PTSD can happen to anyone who has suffered a traumatic event or witness one, and is defined as involving enduring psychological disturbance attributed to the experience of a major traumatic event. PTSD can be life threatening and lead to thoughts of suicide.
         • PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS AND DISORDERS: stress can often lead to development of psychological disorders, and that too much stress can have an impact on ones life.

5. The Effects of Stress on Physical Health

   • continuous stress weakens the immune system and evidence to suggest that stress is harmful has been collecting since the 1930s
     • TYPE A PERSONALITY, HOSTILITY, AND HEART DISEASE: Type A personality includes 3 elements: (1) a strong competitive orientation, (2) impatience and time urgency, and (3) anger and hostility. Type B personality is marked by relatively relaxed, patient, easygoing, amicable behaviour. Moreover, hostility appears to be the key toxic element in the type a syndrome.
       • EMOTIONAL REACTIONS, DEPRESSION & HEART DISEASE: depression and heart disease appear to locked in a dysfunctional cycle of depression, heart disease, and heart attack.
         • STRESS, OTHER DISEASES, AND IMMUNE FUNCTIONING: Although there is an association between stress and stress-illnesses, many of theses stress-illness connection are based on tentative or inconsistent findings. Furthermore, white blood cells seem to produce in higher quantities when an individual is undergoing a stressful event., this can be a possible reason for the connection with chronic diseases.
           • SIZING UP THE LINK BETWEEN STRESS AND ILLNESS: evidence does suggest that stress is the causation of illness, however, there may be a third variable such as personality aspect. Moreover, some people handle stress better, as well some are genetically suited to handle stress better.

6. Factors Moderating the Impact of Stress

   • Moderator variables can lessen the impact of stress on physical and mental health. 3 key moderator variables are: Social Support, Optimism & Conscientiousness.
     • SOCIAL SUPPORT: social support refers to various types of aid and emotional sustenance provided by members of one's social network. Furthermore, culture plays a role in the types of social bonds we prefer, either Explicit Social Support or Implicit Social Support.
       • OPTIMISM, CONSCIENTIOUSNESS & HARDINESS: optimism refers to a general tendancy to expect good outcomes , and is associated with various health benefits. Two other traits conscientiousness and hardiness have health impacts, Hardiness is a constellation of attitudes beliefs, and behavioural tendencies that consists of three components: commitment, control & challenge.

7. Health-Impairing Behaviour

   • SMOKING: in 2013 20.3% of canadians 12 yr and older reported smoking. Smoking also decreases the avg life expectancy by 13-14 yrs.
     • LACK OF EXERCISE: lack of exercise increases health risks, whereas increased exercise is shown to have an all around improvement in health .
       • BEHAVIOUR & AIDS: acquired immune-deficiency syndrome, a disorder in which the immune system is gradually weakened and eventually disabled by the human immunodefiency.
         • HOW DOES HEALTH-IMPARIING BEHAVIOUR DEVELOP? : first, many health-impariing habits creep up on people slowly. Second, many health-impariing habits involve activities that are quite at the time.

8. Reactions to Illness

   • DECIDING TO SEEK TREATMENT: some people are more sensative to symptoms of illness. Furthermore, people may delay seeking treatment because (1) downplay or misinterpret symptoms (2) fret about looking silly if the problem turns out to be nothing (3) worry about "bothering" their physician (4) are relectant to disrupt their plans (5) waste time on trivial matters.
     • COMMUNICATING WITH HEALTH PROVIDERS AND ADHERING TO MEDICAL ADVICE: more often than not, medical advice gets miscommunicate through technical terms and the providers inability to relay the information in a comprehensible fashion. Furthermore, the amount of time spent in medical visit is not enough, topped with noncompliance of health advice only aids the ongoing battle of effeicient health providing.

9. Personal Application: Improving Coping & Stress Management

   • Rational-emotive Therapy is an approach that focuses on alatering clients' pattterns of irrational thinking to reduce maladaptive emotions and behaviour.
     • Catastrophic Thnking involves unreastic negative appraisals of stress that exaggerate the magnitude of ones problems.
       • 10 defences against stress: 1. more sleep, 2. prioritize, 3. reduce transportation stress levels, 4. physical well-being, 5. vacation, 6. sick, stay at home, 7. plan ahead, 8. boundries bewtween work and home time, 9. be thankfule, 10. strong support system.

10. Critical Thinking Application: Thinking Rationally about Health Statistics

    • skills discussed in chapter:
      • SKILL
        • understanding limitations of correlational evidence
          • Understanding limits of statistical significance
            • utilizing base rates in making predictions & evaluating probabilities
              • Seeking information to reduce uncertainty
                • making risk-benefits assesments
                  • generating & evaluating alternative courses of action
      • DESCRIPTION
        • correlation bewteen two variables does not demonstrate that there is a causal link
          • weak relationships can be statistaclly significant when large samples are used in research
            • initial proportion of some group or event needs to be considered in weighing probabilities
              • gathering more information can often decrease uncertainty and facilitate better decisions
                • most decisions have risks and benefits that need to be weighed carefully
                  • generating as many alternatives as possible and assessing their pros and cons is crucial

11. Relationship between Stress and Illness has given way to the Biopsychosocial Model, which asserts that physical illness is caused by a complex interaction of biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors. This model states that theses factors operate in a psycosicoial context that is also influential

    • Health Psychology has emerged due to the rise in chronic diseases, which is focused on how psychosocial factors relate to the promotion & maintenance of health and with the causation prevention, and treatment of illness.

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