Stress Flashcards
What is a stressor?
• Stimulus in the environment
What is stress?
• Tension, discomfort, or physical symptoms that arise when a stressor strains our ability to cope effectively
What is a traumatic event?
• Stressor that’s so severe it can produce long-term psychological or health effects
Describe stress as a stimulus
- Identifying different types of stressful events
- Found event types we find dangerous and unpredictable
- Identified those most susceptible to stress after
- Stress on a community can increase social awareness and cement interpersonal bonds
Describe stress as a transaction including appraisals
• Different reaction to same stressor may be how people interpret and cope with the event
• Primary appraisal
o Initial decision about if event is harmful
• Secondary appraisal
o Decision about how well we can cope with the event
What is problem focused coping?
o We believe we can cope as per secondary appraisal
o Work to improve and face challenges head on
What is emotion focused coping?
o We believe we can’t cope or control events
o We put a positive spin on our feelings
What is avoidance focused coping?
o We believe we can’t cope or control events
o Includes procrastination or distracting yourself
What is learned helplessness and what does it tell us about a persons coping ability?
o Learning that you have no control over your experiences
o Better predictor of long-term coping if people feel they have some control
Describe stress as a response
- Assess a persons physical and psychological reaction to a stressor
- Studies stress related feelings
- Studies heart rate, cortisol release, etc.
What is the social readjustment rating scale?
- Adopts view that stressors are stimuli
- Questionnaire based on 43 life events ranked by stressfulness by participants
- Does not consider coping abilities, resources, etc.
- Does not account for chronic causes for stress
- Some stressors listed may be result of stress rather than cause
What is the Hassles scale?
• Hassle
o Minor nuisance that strains our ability to cope
• Interview rather than self reporting
• Frequency and severity better predictor of physical and psychological disorders
• Have a larger influence over one’s perception of their own wellbeing on any given day
What is Selye’s general adaption syndrome?
- Stress response pattern proposed by Canadian Hans Selye
* Prolonged stressors have 3 stages alarm, resistance and exhaustion
Describe the alarm reaction and the parts of the body and hormones involved
• Excitation of autonomic nervous system (fight or flight response)
o Adrenalin and physical symptoms of it
• Involves emotional brain, limbic system
o Amygdala, hypothalamus, and hippocampus (retrieves scary images/memories)
• Cortisol released
o Stress hormone form adrenal gland
o Under control of hypothalamus and pituitary
Describe resistance
- Adapts to stressor and finds way to cope
* Thinking brain of frontal cortex takes control of thoughts
Describe exhaustion
• Break down of resistance due to
o Prolonged stressor
o Lack of personal resources and coping skills
• Can result in physical and psychological damage
Describe tend and befriend
- By Shelley Taylor
- Pattern common among women, may be experienced by men
- Rely on social contacts and turn to others for support
- Combined with fight or flight increases odds of offspring’s survival
- Promoted by oxytocin, the love and bonding hormone, which helps counter stress
Describe PTSD
• A condition that may follow extremely stressful events
• Symptoms include
o Flashbacks (vivid memories, feelings, and images of traumatic events)
o Avoiding triggers
o Feeling detached from others
o Increased arousal
Difficulty sleeping
Startling easy
• Severity, duration, and nearness of stressor affect role of PTSD
• Number of traumatic events and lack of social support predict stress levels, depression, and suicidal thoughts
• Military at high risk
• Supportive spouses decrease symptoms
What is psychoneuroimmunology?
- Study of relationship between immune system and CNS
* Positive thinking cannot reverse serious illness and physical diseases are not result of negative thinking
Describe the connection between stress and colds
- Significant stressors are best predictors of cold development
- May be due to inflammatory response caused by stress
- Close ties to loved ones and community gave protection from colds
- May also be increased due to stress related behaviors (poor sleep, diet, etc.)
How are stressors related to the immune system and how can this be counteracted?
- Severely stressful situations (i.e., death of a spouse) decreases immune system
- Positive emotions and social support help counteract this
What is psychophysiological?
- Illnesses in which emotions and stress contributes to, maintains, or aggravates the physical condition
- Includes ulcers, asthma, etc.
What is biopsychosocial perspective?
- View that illness or medical condition is the product of interplay of biological, psychological, and social factors
- Adopted by most psychologists
- Medical conditions are not all physical or psychological
Describe the relationship between ulcers and stress
- Used to be thought of as psychosomatic
- 90% caused by H. pylori bacteria
- Higher rates of ulcers in people suffering stress so may reduce resistance to bacteria
Describe the relationship between stress and coronary heart disease
• Stressful events predict recurrences of MI’s, HTN, and cardiomegaly (enlargement)
o Only correlational
• High levels of stress hormones can lead to dysrhythmias, atherosclerosis, and cardiac arrest
• Autonomic nervous system increases HR and exaggerated responses to physical stressors
• May also be increased due to stress related behaviours
• Hostility a predictor of CVD, decreasing hostility and practicing forgiveness decreases risk of death
What is social support and how does it help with stress and overall health?
- Relationships with people and groups that can provide us with emotional comfort and personal and financial resources
- People with less social support have higher mortality rates
What is behavioral control?
- Active coping that is problem-focused
* Do something to decrease impact and prevent recurrence of stressful event
What is cognitive control?
• Emotion-focused coping involving thinking differently about negative emotions
• Helps when we can’t control or change stressful events
• Collective self esteem
o An evaluation of ones identity “I am…”
o Tied to better health for those with little perceived control
o May protect older adults who believe they have little control with what is happening in their life
What is decisional control?
- Ability to choose among alternative courses of action
* Can include consulting with others for help
What is informational control?
• Ability to acquire information about a stressful event
• Proactive coping
o Anticipating problems and stressful situations and take steps to prevent or minimize difficulties before they arise
o People who practice this often perceive stressful events as growth opportunities
What is emotional control?
- Ability to suppress and express emotions
- People who journal about traumatic events have more emotional control and it improves overall health and wellbeing
- May need to supress anger and fear until its appropriate to express
What is crisis debriefing
- Usually 3-4 hours long within 1-2 days following the incident
- Discusses participants emotions to help process
- New research shows its not effective
- May increase risk of PTSD by getting in the way of natural coping strategies
- Emotional disclosure (vs nondisclosure) shows no benefit to physical or psychological measures
- Emotional disclosure most likely to help when it allows thinking about and working through problems in a more constructive light
What is flexible coping?
- Ability to adjust coping skills to situation demands
- Shows its critical to coping with many stressful situations
- Suppressing and avoiding emotions can distract us from problem solving and coping long term
Describe hardiness and its effect on overall health
- Set of attitudes marked by a sense of control over events, commitment to life and work, and courage and motivation to confront stressful circumstance
- Quality of stress-resistant people
- Remain healthier than those that are not hardy
- May be because they tend to react calmly to stressors rather than just being hardy
Describe optimism and its effect on overall health
- Decreased mortality rate
* Better at handling frustration than pessimists
Describe spirituality and religious involvement and its effect on overall health
• Spirituality is the search for the sacred, may or may not extend to belief in God
• Decreased mortality rates
• May be due to
o Prohibiting risky health behaviours
o Increases social support and marital satisfaction
o Sense of meaning and purpose
Describe ruminating and its effect on overall health
- Focusing on how bad we feel and endlessly analyzing cause and consequences of our problems
- Recycling negative events can make us more depressed
- Reflection related to positive adjustment
- Regret and brooding related to negative adjustment
What is health psychology?
- Also called behavioral medicine
- Field of psychology that integrates the behavioral sciences with the practice of medicine
- Studies influences of stress and other psychological factors on physical disorders
- Uses psychological interventions to promote and maintain health and to prevent and treat illness
Describe smoking cessations overall health benefits
- Smoking leading cause of preventable disease
- About 50% try to quit, only 10% of that succeed
- Education about risks managing stress, and avoiding high risk situations worked 25-35% of the time in long term smoker
- More attempts to quit increases changes of success
Describe the overall health benefits of reducing alcohol intake
• 1400 Canadians die in DUI MVCs each year
• Repeated heavy episodic drinking linked to serious health consequences
o At least than 5 drinks in men and 4 in women