1.1 Concept of Stress and Adaptation Flashcards
Mental health
- Successful adaptation to stressors from internal and external environments, evidenced by thoughts, feelings and behaviors that are age appropriate and congruent with local and cultural norms
- Being able to adapt to stress at an age appropriate level and fits in with local/cultural norms
- Townsend’s definition
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Physiological - Food, water, warmth, rest
Safety - Security and safety
Belongingness and Love - Friendship and Relationships
Esteem Needs - Prestige and Accomplishment
Self-Actualization - Achieving Full Potential
Self-Actualization
- Fulfilment of one’s highest potential
CHARACTERISTICS
- Appropriate perception of reality
- Ability to accept themselves, others, and human nature
- Ability to manifest spontaneity
- Capacity to problem solve
- Desire for privacy and need for detachment
- Independence, autonomy, resistance to enculturation (adapting to culture around them)
- Frequency of peak experiences that validate their own self-worth
- Identification with human kind
- Ability to achieve satisfactory interpersonal relationships
- Strong sense of ethics
- Creativity
- Degree of non-conformance
Mental Illness
- Cultural elements and individual perception make mental illness difficult to define
Incomprehensibility - Inability of the general population to understand motivation behind the behavior
Cultural Relativity - “Normality” of behavior is determined by culture.
- Horwitz Definition
Physical Response to Stress
- Fight-or-Flight Syndrome
- Hypothalamus is stimulated in the brain
- Sweating
- Increased RR, HR, BP, Metabolism
- Increased blood flow to muscles
- Increased sympathetic nervous system activity
Selye’s Adaptation Syndrome
Alarm Stage - Initiation of fight-or-flight
Resistance Stage - Attempt to adapt to the stressor. If adaptation occurs, body goes back to normal and symptoms disappear, if unable to adapt, people move on to the 3rd stage.
Exhaustion Stage - Adaptive energy is depleted and diseases of adaptation may ensue
Immediate Response for Fight or Flight
- Dilation of pupils and bronchioles
- Increased RR
- Increased force of cardiac contraction which increases CO, HR, BP
- Increased secretion from sweat glands
- Decreased gastric motility and secretions
Fight-Or-Flight
- Emotional stressors usually take longer to adapt to than physical stressors
- Modern stress is a psychosocial state that is pervasive, chronic, and relentless. This promotes susceptibility to disease of adaptation
Psychological Response to Stress
- Involves anxiety and grief
- Adaptation involves how much ones feelings and thoughts affect an individuals function
Anxiety
- Discomfort and apprehension related to fear of impending danger
- May be unaware of why they are anxious but feels uncertain and helpless
- Common and almost everyone feels it
Levels of Anxiety
Mild - Seldom issues
Moderate - Perceptual field begins to diminish
Severe - Perceptual fields greatly diminish
Panic - Most intense state
Mild Anxiety
- Prepares people for action and sharpens the senses.
- Increases motivation for productivity
- Increases perceptual field and heightens awareness of the environment
- Learning is enhanced
- Individual functions at optimal levels.
Moderate Anxiety
- Perceptual field diminishes
- Less alert to their environment
- Decreased attention span and concentration, may require help with problem solving
- Increased muscular tension and restlessness
Severe Anxiety
- Perceptual field greatly decreases
- Concentration centers on either one particular detail or many extraneous details
- Attention span extremely limited with difficulty completing even simple tasks
- Headaches, palpations, insomnia
- Confusion, dread, horror
- All behavior is usually aimed at relieving anxiety
Panic Anxiety
- Unable to focus on even one detail in the environment
- Misperceptions and loss of contact with reality
- Hallucinations and Delusions
- Human function and communication with others is ineffective
- Feeling of loss of control, going crazy, emotionally weak
- May think they have a life-threatening illness
- Prolonged states can lead to exhaustion which is life-threatening
