Stress, Coping and Health Flashcards
Why is it important to understand stress?
- Will work with clients under stress
- May experience high stress levels or work with others experiencing stress
- Understanding effective stress management important for you/client’s health
What is stress?
Process by which we perceive and respond to certain events, called stressors, that we appraise as threatening or challenging
What are the 3 main types of stressors in modern society?
Catastrophes, Significant Life Changes, Daily Hassles
What are examples of catastrophes?
- ie. war, earthquake, famine
- Extensive watching of terrorist attacks footage predicted poor health
What are examples of significant life changes?
Leaving home, starting uni or a new job, getting married, divorce, bereavement
What are examples of daily hassles?
Road-works, assignments, work, friends/family, too much to do, finance, trying to maintain a lifestyle
What are the primary functions of stress?
- When short lived or perceived a challenge, stressors have positive effects (fight or flight)
- Arousal motivates us to solve problems
- Stress response is fight or flight response, marked by adrenaline and nor adrenaline released from adrenal glands
- Increases heart and respiration rates, mobilising sugars and fat, dulling pain
What is the General Adaptation Syndrome?
Hans Selye’s concept of body’s adaptive response to stress in 3 phases: alarm, resistance and exhaustion
Describe Phase 1: Alarm Reaction
- Sympathetic nervous system suddenly activated
- Heart rate zooms
- Blood is diverted to your skeletal muscles
- Faintness of shock
- Resources mobilised, ready to fight back
Describe Phase 2: Resistance
- Temperature, blood pressure, respiration high
- Adrenal glands pump hormones into bloodstream
- Fully engaged, summoning all resources to meet challenge
- As time passes, with no relief from stress, , your body’s reserves begin to dwindle
Describe Phase 3: Exhaustion
Become more vulnerable to illness, collapse or death
What is Lazarus’ view of stress response?
- Stress refers to any circumstance (real or perceived) that threatens person’s wellbeing
- Opportunity or potential failure (primary appraisal)
- Factors in cognitive abilities
- Secondary appraisal is how well we expect to cope
- Availability of resources is weighed up vs demands
- Likelihood that I will overcome this
What are physical symptoms of stress?
- Muscular aches and pains
- Nervous Tic
- Breathing changes
- Butterflies
- Ulcers
- Constipation
- Chest pain
- Sweating
- Itches/Rashes
- Grinding teeth
- Fatigue
What are psychological symptoms of stress
- Fear
- Anxiety
- Panic
- Worry
- Depression
- Self blame
- Low confidence
- Guilt
- Anger
- Moodiness
- Memory Lapse
What are behavioural symptoms of stress?
- Drug use
- Alcohol use
- Loss of sex drive
- Over eating
- Under eating
- Aggression
- Stuttering
- Crying
- Nagging
- Reduced work performance
What is psychoneuroimmunology?
How our thoughts and feelings impact the brain an in turn influence hormones and immune system functioning
Describe stress triggers immune suppression
- Reduces release of disease fighting lymphocytes (white blood cells)
- Stress linked to infections
- Human immune system reacts similarly
1) Surgical wounds heal more slowly in stressed people
2) Stressed people more vulnerable to colds
3) Stress can hasten course of disease. AIDS immune disorder caused by HIV - Weakens ability to fight cancer
What is Coronary Heart Disease?
Clogging of vessels that nourish the heart muscle; leading cause of death in developed countries
What is occupational stress?
- Demands associated with high levels of strain
- Demands offset by perception one has control over aspects of the work, or commensurate rewards
How can people manage stress?
- Appraise threat or challenge
- What we do is dependent on number of factors
- Alleviate it with emotional, cognitive, behavioural methods
What is personal control?
Sense of controlling our environment rather than feeling helpless
What is learned helplessness?
Hopelessness and passive resignation a person learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events
Describe perceived control and coping self efficacy with stress?
- Self efficacy specific to situation
- Previous successes in similar situations will increase efficacy and failure will undermine it
- Increase efficacy by observing other people cope successfully and encouragement from others
Describe problem focussed coping strategies
Confront and directly deal with the demands or remove it
Describe emotion focussed coping strategies
Deal with the emotional responses that result from a stressful situation (ie. addressing the anxiety)
-Especially low perceived control
Describe social support seeking
Turn to others for assistance (ie. emotional support)
What is a Type B personality?
Refers to easy going, relaxed people
What is a Type A personality?
Competitive, driven, impatient, verbally aggressive and anger-prone people
Describe neuroticism and negative affectivity personality traits
Linked to attention to internal states and increased somatic complaints
Describe optimists
Tend to report stressors as temporary, controllable and specific to ones situation
-Associated with less fatigue, fewer colds, longer lifespan
Describe pessimists
Tend to interpet stressors as uncontrollable, long-lasting and generalised to many life domains
Describe social support available for those stressed?
- Reduced blood pressure
- Increased immune functioning
- Greater sense of identity, purpose
- Inversely associated with loneliness (risk factors)
- Increased control over stressors
- Supports prevention of maladaptive coping strategies
What types of benefits are there from social support?
- Tangible Assistance
- Information
- Emotional Support
What is tangible assistance?
- Provide goods and services in stressful circumstances
- ie. meals, money, mowing lawns
What is information?
- Recommend specific actions and plans to help cope more successfully
- ie. time management advice
What is emotional support?
- Buffer/prevent development of depression, anxiety, low self esteem
- ie. providing reassurance
How can aerobic exercise reduce stress?
- Sustained exercise increases heart and lung fitness; alleviates depression and anxiety
- Strengthens heart, increases blood flow, reduces blood pressure
- Adding quality and quantity of life
- Improving mood, more energy
- Fighting health conditions
How can relaxation reduce stress?
- Body can’t be tense (stressed) and relaxed at same time
- Focusing on relaxation temporarily takes focus away from problem
- Alleviates headaches, hypertension, anxiety, insomnia
How can biofeedback reduce stress?
- Uses electrical devices to inform people about physiological responses
- Similar to prompted relaxation and meditation
- Effective for tension headaches
How can personal strategies
- Recognise signs early
- Identify tension and then use targeted relaxation
- Tense people breathe shallow and rapid, reducing oxygen to brain
- Change self talk to be more positive/optimistic
- Managing environment
How can we promote health?
- Defined as absence of disease
- Begins by preventing illness and enhancing wellbeing, a constant endeavour
- Stress management important
What factors influences ones reaction to diagnosis of chronic condition?
- Social support
- Coping skills
- Personality
- Illness Characteristics
- Impacts on daily functioning
What is the reaction sequence defined by Shontz?
1) Shock: out of body experience, detachment and autopilot
2) Encounter: confused and disorganised thinking, feeling overwhelmed by loss, grief, enormity, helplessness or despair
3) Retreat: begin to comfort illness, little at a time
What are aspects of the crisis theory?
- Illness related factors
- Background and personal factors
- Physical and social environment factors
What are illness related factors of crisis theory?
- Health issues present greater threat then others
- Others may be disabling, disfiguring or painful
What are background and personal factors of crisis theory?
- Those who cope well have adequate psychological/behavioural resources to cope with issue
- Pre exisiting emotional issues relate to poor coping
- Balance hope against despair to find purpose in life
- Personality factors and optimism help sustain self esteem in fact of helplessness
What are physical and social environment factors of crisis theory?
- Physical aspects exacerbates poor mood and contributes to increased fear/anxiety
- Equipment, exposure to nature
- Social environment is dynamic; individual influences others
- Presence of social support associated with better coping and adjustment
What is the coping process for dealing with chronic conditions?
- Adaptive tasks used in combination
- Denying/minimising good in early stages
- Seeking information
- Learn to provide own care and manage condition (gain control)
- Set small goals, adhere to routines
- Recruit support
- Gain a manageable perspective
What are the 2 kinds of adaptive tasks in the coping process?
1) Those relating to illness or treatment
2) Those relating to general psychosocial function
