Chapter 12 - Part 2: Stress and Health Flashcards
stress
- occurs in any circumstance where there’s a real or perceived threat to someone’s well-being
- process/mobilization by which we appraise and cope with environmental threats/challenges
- can be beneficial in small doses, but harmful if intense or prolonged
- affects our health and body directly and indirectly
- 1/2 of leading causes of death in Canada attributed to behaviours we do while we’re stressed (ie. overeating, smoking, etc.)
behavioural medicine
- integrates behavioural knowledge with medical knowledge
- goals: increase life expectancy, reduce suffering, increase life quality
- health psychology: psych’s contribution to behavioural medicine
- psych now plays a large role in health (evidenced by increased number of psychologists in medical school) and in researching stress and health outcomes
interpretation of stressors
- if you interpret stressor as a challenge you can overcome, your response will be aroused and focused
- if you interpret stressor as a threat, your response will be stressed and distracted
stress response
- fight-or-flight
- outpouring of epinephrine and norepinephrine
- increasing heart and respiration rates
- mobilizing sugar and fat reserves
- dulling pain
general adaptation syndrome
- 3-phase stress response
- phase 1: alarm reaction (mobilization of resources) -> stress resistance starts low, then skyrockets
- phase 2: resistance (coping with stressor) -> stress resistance high
- phase 3: exhaustion (reserves depleated) -> stress resistance goes lower and lower and eventually drops below baseline
why is stress bad?
- designed to cope with intense, short-lived stressors (short phase 2), but we spend a lot of time in phase 2 (ie. from traffic, work, line-ups, etc.)
- stress can cause shorter lives, alterations in brain structure, depression, sleeplessness, anxiety, disease, coronary heart disease, etc.
stress types
- Type A: more stressed, impatient, competitive, angry when things don’t go the way they want; more heart disease
- Type B: more easygoing, relaxed; less heart disease
psychophysical illness
- any stress-related physical illness
- ex. hypertension, headaches, etc.
immune system
during stress, energy mobilized away from immune system -> immune system more vulnerable
stress and AIDS
- stress accelerates progression from HIV to AIDS
- psychosocial programs create behavioural interventions to slow spread of AIDS (ex. ABC)
stress and cancer
- unclear if stress influences progression (does not cause)
- avoiding stress does not reverse advanced cancer
conditioning immune system
- step 1: giving drug that suppresses immune system
- step 2: giving drug that suppresses immune system as well as sweetened water
- step 3: giving sweetened water now suppresses immune system
- replace the drug in the example with stress -> when stress is tied to activities we do often, those activities end up suppressing our immune system
health-related consequences of stress
persistent stressors and negative emotions cause unhealthy behaviours as well as release of stress hormones, which can then cause heart disease, immune suppression, and autonomic nervous system effects (headache, hypertension)
2 types of coping
- problem-focused coping
- emotion-focused coping
problem-focused coping
- changing events that cause stress
- ex. dropping a stressful class
emotion-focused coping
- attending to our own emotional needs when we can’t change a stressful situation
- ex. venting to your friends about your stressful class
perceived control
- in rat experiment, “executive” rat and “control” rat equally less likely to develop stomach ulcers -> even though executive rat still got shocked, the fact that it still had control over situation reduced stress
- subordinate rat likely to develop stomach ulcers as it had no control
- therefore, it’s not just the stressor that matters, it’s our perceived control of the stressor
optimistic explanatory style
- more control over stressors
- cope better with stressful events
- have better moods
- have stronger immune system
3 ways to manage stress and health
- sense of control
- optimistic explanatory style
- social support (declines as we age)
- aerobic exercise
4 ways to reduce anxiety/tension
- biofeedback: hooking someone up to a machine to measure sympathetic response -> patient tries to get number down to lower response
- relaxation: ex. tensing and relaxing muscles
- meditation: ex. mindfulness
- spirituality and faith communities: regular religious attendance = reduced risk of death (leads to healthier behaviours, more social support, more positive emotions, etc.)
3 things correlated with lower risk of death
- not smoking
- regular exercise
- weekly religious attendance
why do people keep smoking?
- negative reinforcement: removes unpleasant cravings/withdrawal symptoms, takes away stress
- positive reinforcement: nicotine is rewarding (triggers dopamine), social activity
tend-and-befriend
under stress, people (especially women) often provide support to others (tend) and bond with/seek support from others (befriend)
psychoneuroimmunology
study of how psychological, neural, and endocrine processes affect the immune system and resulting health (mind-body interactions)
learned helplessness
hopelessness and passive resignation and animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events (ex. subordinate rat in rat experiments)
external locus of control
perception that chance or outside forces beyond our personal control determine our fate
internal locus of control
perception that we control our own fate
self-control
- ability to control impulses an delay short-term gratification for greater long-term rewards
- predicts good health, higher income, and better grades
