Stress Flashcards
Unit 3 Area of Study 1
What is stress?
A state of psychological and physiological arousal produced by internal or external stressors that are perceived by the individual as challenging or exceeding their ability or resources to cope.
What is a stressor?
Any person, situation, or event that produces stress.
What are internal stressors?
Stressors that originate within the individual (cognitive or biological).
What are external stressors?
Stressors that originate outside the individual from situations and events in the environment (social or environmental).
What is eustress?
A positive psychological response to a perceived stressor, indicated by positive psychological states such as feeling enthusiastic and motivated, excited, active, and alert.
What is distress?
A negative psychological response to a perceived stressor, indicated by the presence of negative psychological states such as anger, anxiety, nervousness, irritability, or tension.
What is acute stress?
A form of stress characterised by intense psychological and physiological symptoms that are brief in duration.
What is the flight-fight-or-freeze response?
An involuntary and automatic response to a threat that takes the form of either escaping it, confronting it, or freezing.
What is cortisol?
The primary stress hormone.
What is chronic stress?
Ongoing demands, pressures, and worries that are long-lasting, resulting in increased arousal level that persists over a relatively long time.
What is context-specific effectiveness?
When there is a match or ‘good fit’ between the coping strategy that is used and the stressful situation.
What is coping flexibility?
The ability to effectively modify or adjust one’s coping strategies according to the demands of different stressful situations.
What are approach strategies?
Involves efforts to confront the stressor and deal directly with its effects.
What are avoidance strategies?
Involves efforts to evade a stressor and not directly deal with it and its effects.
What is the Gut Brain Axis (GBA)?
The network of bi-directional (two-way) neural pathways that allows communication between gut microbiota (bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract) and the brain.
What is the enteric nervous system?
A branch of the autonomic nervous system which manages the functions of the digestive system.
What is the vagus nerve?
The longest nerve in the body running from the brainstem to the intestines that enables communication between the gut and the brain (bi-directional).
What is dysbiosis?
A disruption to the diversity of microbiota in the gut that can cause a range of digestive illnesses, suppressed immune system, and can impact cognitive processes, feelings of stress, depression, and some social behaviours.
